Under The Mask
by incorporated
Summary: We never show our true selves. We only let people see what we want them to see. Uzumaki Naruto had let himself be seen as the happy idiot, but there is obviously more to him than meets the eye. The moment she saw him she knew there was something that wasn't right, it was unnatural. She saw underneath the mask and now he is letting it crumble for everyone to see.
1. Chapter 1

It was a normal afternoon in Konoha. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and our favourite blonde was making his way to the Academy for team assignment. He was thinking about what happened the night before, the incident with Mizuki.

'I can't believe I had to act stupid and weak the whole time! I could've kicked his ass without Iruka getting hurt. I hope he's alright. But wait, why the fuck do I have to act like a happy-go-lucky idiot again? Oh right, cause the fucking council will say that I am under the control of the demon. I swear they are such idiots.'

These were the thoughts going through Naruto's head as he passed through the morning crowd with his fake smile. On his way to the Academy he felt all the cold glares from the citizens. He heard all the whispers, all of them calling him a demon. If looks could kill then he would have been mutilated by now.

Though contrary to popular belief, Naruto already knew he contained the Kyuubi, even before last night. He figured it out when he was 5 years old, when he met the fox for the first time after another assassination attempt and that was what had changed his life.

* * *

_He felt something wet fall onto his face. Naruto got up from the ground to see he wasn't in his bed anymore. Pipes covered the ceiling above him occasionally dripping water creating a ripple on the partially flooded floor. He was half submerged with his back in the water. _

_"Where am I?" He wondered out loud as he stood up shakily. "Did the bad men chase me back into the sewers again?"_

_His knees were covered by the water but he had no trouble walking. It was then he saw a light from one of the many tunnels that surrounded him. _

_"Light is good right?" He followed his gut and continued down the hallway. He ended up in a room with a huge cage. There seemed to be something or someone inside. Naruto was about to step closer to get a better look when he heard a low gravelly voice. _

_"Who are you?" The voice said, at the same time a huge red eye opened. Naruto yelped and stepped back. _

_"Stop with the shouting you child. Who are you?" The voice was starting to get irritated and angry. The young blonde didn't want him angry. He knew what people did to him when he was angry. _

_"Uzumaki Naruto. Who are you if you don't mind me asking? If you are here to hurt me, please go ahead and get it over with, " It was quite a gamble on the young blonde's behalf seeing as his usual attackers didn't like it when he get all smart with the attitude with them. The boy had nothing to lose seeing as he was already going to die. _

_"Uzumaki huh? Just like Mito and Kushina. Perhaps you are the son of that Yondaime brat that put me in here. I'm the greatest of all the tailed beasts. I am the Kyuubi no Yoko. I like your spunk but that doesn't change the fact that I want to kill you," The red eye slowly rose of the ground and moved forward. The Kyuubi's tails on full display for the young boy. _

_"So Kyuubi-san, is you're name actually Kyuubi or do you have another name? Because it doesn't sound like a name to me," The young boy feeling generally curious. He wasn't so afraid anymore. If the Kyuubi was really to hurt him, he would have done it by now. _

_"It has been awhile since somebody has asked me that," the Kyuubi stated getting quite all of a sudden. He started to remember his time when he was under the care of the Rikudō Sennin. "My name is Kurama." _

_"Nice to meet you Kurama-san," the young blonde said with a bright smile that almost melted the old demon's ice cold heart._

_'This boy isn't so bad. None of the past jinchuurikis has ever asked me that. Interesting.' Kurama though to himself as he released some of his chakra through the bars so that the young boy could heal. _

_' I can't have this boy dying on me cause then I can never be free. I might as well add a bit more so that he get bigger chakra reserves and better senses. This boy needs as much strength as he can to survive the cruelty of the world.'_

_Naruto then awoke to the white ceiling of the Konoha Hospital and the warm hand of the Sandaime holding his. _

* * *

He wasn't the idiot everyone thought he was, the boy was actually a genius. Maybe it was due to the reality check that Kurama gave him after his third assassination attempt. At the age of 6, he already began trainning.

Kurama was helping him, though he was still being hostile but it was clear to anybody else that the young boy had wormed his way into the demon's cold heart. He had given Naruto the idea to observe as other ninja did their trainning, going as far as to teach the boy how to mask his own chakra until he became unnoticeable to even the best ANBU. The boy was a clever one and picked up on techniques by watching them being performed. He then replicated the techniques. A genius indeed.

But the boy knew the dangers if he showed his capabilities to the world. The civilian council would be suspicious and claim that the demon has awakened in him. Which in reality wasn't really far off but he wanted keep suspicion away from him as much as possible. So he wore a mask of happiness and idiocy which covered his true self.

The young blondes true nature was anything but idiotic. Having watched the more advanced join train for years took a toll on him, by the age of 7 his abilities had out shined those of the children his age. Along with his training, he developed a sense of maturity that of far beyond his years. As Naruto finally arrived at the Academy effectively shaking him out of his thoughts. He climbed up the stairs to the room where the assignment would be held. He stepped inside to find that he actually arrived earlier than usual.

"What are you doing here dobe? This room is for those who graduated only," Kiba said once he saw the blonde enter the room.

"I graduated dog-breath. Look," Naruto replied as he rolled his eyes, gesturing to the headband that was tied around the blonde's forehead.

Kiba just shrugged and left the matter alone. The Inuzuka didn't actually hate the blonde, in fact he could even consider them friends, with all the times that they ditched school together and the numerous pranks that they 's just that the senseis told him to stay away.

Since Naruto was in no mood to deal with the last Uchiha who thought that he was better than everyone or the annoying banshee Sakura who didn't take her job as kunoichi seriously, he chose a seat in the far corner of the classroom. He lay his head down on top of his fold arms and pretend to sleep. In reality he was observing the whole room.

He saw sleeping Shikamaru with Choji eating a bag of chips a few seats away from him. He noticed that Kiba was boasting to Hinata about a powerful technique he learned with the young heiress just nodding along. He saw Sasuke staring out the window brooding once again but what caught his attention was the girl next to him.

She didn't study at the Academy. Naruto would have known her if she did. She didn't even seem interested in the fact that she was sitting to the "precious" last Uchiha and that was odd since there were only less than a hand full of girls who didn't.

She had black hair that faded to white at the end that stopped just below her neck. She appeared to be sleeping. Her posture was oddly similar to his, always on guard.

The door flew open with a bang, revealing a tired Ino and Sakura, interrupting Naruto's assessment on the new girl. Almost all the boys in the class rolled their eyes at the behaviour of the two fangirls that were racing to take the seat next to their 'beloved' Sasuke-kun.

The two girls finally noticed that the seat they were fighting for was already taken by a girl. They were nothing short of furious. It was Sakura who initiated the contact with the mystery girl.

"HEY BITCH! What are you doing sitting next to MY Sasuke?" She practically screamed at the girl as she rudely shook the girl awake.

'She'll regret doing that. This should be very interesting.' Naruto thought with a slight smirk. He knew that the Haruno had little to nothing skills when it came to being a ninja even though she had more than enough knowledge. She was way too focused on maintaining her figure rather than trainning. So this new girl could most likely kick her ass.

The mystery girl stood up after being rudely awakened. Though she was only a few inches taller than Sakura, the girl still looked down at her. "What the fuck did you just call me?" The mystery girl asked menacingly.

The whole room grew silent and watched the scene that was about to unfold. Sakura was screwed.

"That's right you heard me bitch! Who the hell are you anyways? You aren't even supposed to be here! This room is for ninja only!" Sakura says in a loud, obnoxious voice.

Ino felt pity for Sakura. It was clear to Ino that the Haruno should have just kept quite instead of answering back. The next thing everyone one was that there was a kunai against Sakura's throat and the mystery girl was now behind her. This shocked everyone, they didn't see her move.

In that moment Sakura could not be more afraid, she felt the cold metal against her neck. She could feel the sharpness of the blade that could cut her skin any moment if any of the girls moved in the slightest. With the unnamed girl's kunai pressed against her throat she said "You talk to me like that again, I will not hesitate to cut through your throat. You call yourself a ninja and you can't even block me. You're pathetic."

Sakura nods nervously, she was desperate to save her life. The girl let go of her and put away her kunai. "Here is your seat. I don't want it anymore." Sakura just numbly stood, holding her neck.

The unnamed girl made her way to the corner of the room where our blonde was still pretending to sleep. She lightly tapped his shoulder making the blonde sit up, "May I sit there?" she asked politely gesturing to the seat next to the blonde.

"Sure! Why not? What's your name? I've never seen you here before," He said in his overly happy and hyper voice. 'Well, she seems nice despite her almost murder a few seconds ago. I think we are going to be good friends,' Naruto thought while he kept his fake smile towards the girl in-check.

"Thank you. My name is Kojin Akira," She introduced with a small smile as she sat down in the chair next to him. The room was still dead silent with everyone staring at the newly named Kojin.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto! I'm gonna be the next Hokage!" The blonde said in reply, not minding the tension in the room. It was after all part of his 'personalty' to be oblivious, right?

"Nice to meet you Naruto-san," with that the newly named ninja went back to her fake nap. Whispers erupted among the rest of the genin who were watching their interaction. It was still very silent when Iruka came in, shocking the chunin. He waved it aside and began the assignments.

"Sit down and let's begin. I will be calling your names to announce which genin teams all of you will be assigned to. Each genin team has 4 members, a jonin leader and three genin."

The genins who were left standing all rushed to their seats, Choji awoke his sleeping companion and Naruto lightly tapped Akira's shoulder. Both sleeping genin slowly sat up, still feeling very sleepy. Their nature was similar, it was kind of unnerving.

"Okay, let's begin with Team 1…"

While the team assignment was happening, Naruto finally got a good look at the girl sitting beside him. She wore a black kimono-like blouse with a white triangle outline at the back, it covered her arms leaving only her hands visible. She wore black shorts that reached mid-thigh while the rest of her legs were covered by white bandages, the Konoha head band tied to her thigh. She carried the standard pouches that stored shuriken and other ninja tools. Her hair on the other hand was rather interesting seeing as it fell at her should and was white at the ends. A hint of tattoo was seen on her neck.

"Team 7, Uzumaki Naruto …"

This drew the blonde's attention back to Iruka.

"Haruno Sakura,"

Naruto pretended to celebrate due to the fact he was grouped with his "crush", while Sakura banged her head against the table.

"Uchiha Sasuke,"

This caused Sakura to rejoice and Naruto to bang his head against the table.

"and Kojin Akira. Your jonin sensei is Hatake Kakashi."

Once Sakura heard Akira's name she almost cried. She couldn't believe that she was grouped with the psychotic bitch that almost killed her. She unconsciously held her neck, remembering the event that happened a few minutes ago. It was not one she wanted to happen again.

"Ummm Iruka-sensei, I thought we were only supposed to be three genins in a team." Sakura said innocently, hoping that Iruka would remove a certain someone from her team.

"That is the usual case but since we have an uneven amount of graduates, your team will have four genins. Your sensei and the Sandaime has agreed to this until he is to transfer Akira to her sensei who is still out on a year long misison," Iruka said in reply to the pink haired girl, "So for now she will be with Team 7."

'Hmph, my team is full of useless people. They will not benefit me in any way,' thought Sasuke regarding his team. The boy wanted people who he could take advantage of, ones that would help him achieve his goal, not this useless bunch.

'This will be very interesting, though I have to be extra careful. This Kojin girl seems to be very observant, she might expose me and now is not yet the right time,' Naruto thought while stealing a glance at the girl sitting next to him who was looking forward at Iruka.

"Okay, moving on. Team 8: Hyuuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba and Aburame Shino. Your jonin sensei will be Yuuhi Kurenai." Iruka continued.

The Hyuuga heiress seemed sad by the fact that she was separated from Naruto. But she looked at her teammates and she was happy enough that they were nice people. Her family was well acquainted with the Aburame and Inuzuka clans seeing as they were usually put together for tracking missions.

"Team 10: Yamanaka Ino, Akimichi Choji and Nara Shikamaru. Your jonin sensei is Sarutobi Asuma."

Ino was complaining about the fact that she was teamed with two very lazy ninja, while Shikamaru and Choji didn't mind her. But at the same time she was grateful that she wasn't with Akira, the new girl. The three were childhood friends and they had already expected this team assginemnet because they were the next generation of Ino-Shika-Cho, the well known combination due to their fathers.

That concluded all the teams and they went to have a lunch break and would be expected back at the Academy afterwards to be picked up by their respective jonin sensei.

"Do you want to eat luck together Sakura-chan? Sasuke-teme? Akira-san? Since we are teammates after all," Naruto asked the other members of his newly assigned team. Of course Naruto already knew that Sakura and Sasuke would reject the idea but it was part of the charade.

"I WOULDN'T BE CAUGHT DEAD WITH YOU NARUTO-BAKA!" Sakura screamed while running after Sasuke, who didn't bother to reply. They for some reason hated the boy with a burning passion though he had never done anything to them. Naruto understood that it was due to the Uhciha's inferiority complex and the Haruno's fangirl attitude.

"I would like to join you, Naruto-san," Akira replied to the blonde as they left the almost empty classroom and into the nearby stairwell. She did not know the boy that was to be her teammate and she was curious.

"Then let's go! I'll bring you to the place with the best food ever!" Naruto said, still acting like an idiot as they went down the stairs. The boy needed to play that part and he was paying it very well.

"I would appreciate it if you stopped screaming and acting like an idiot, Naruto-san."

Naruto smiled at her statement and his whole demeanour changed. He stood up straighter and walked much lighter, his big goofy smile came off his face and was replaced by a small gentle smile.

"I would appreciate it if you weren't so formal with me Akira-san and please just call me Naruto."

"Then you can just call me Akira."

"I think we are going to get along quite well," Naruto stated. Both genin laughed and made their way to the ramen stand that wasn't too far away.

"So, who exactly are you Naruto?" Akira asked the male as they made their way to Ichiraku Ramen. She was very straightforward in asking which the blonde appreciated.

"I would be asking you exactly the same thing," Naruto smiled back. He did not fully trust her quite yet but seeing as she saw clever enough to see through him he would give her a chance. She peaked his interest as well so now the challenge was to ask as much questions without giving away too much about himself. After all he was rather private person.

"Fine, I'll ask you a question and you'll answer. You can ask me question and I'll answer. We alternate so it's fair. Okay?" Akira compromised. She did not like the idea but knew that it was necessary evil.

"Fine. Me first. So where did you come from? I know for a fact that you aren't from around here," the blonde had never seen her before and the fact that she was being kind to him showed that she wasn't from around here. Because in the village nobody treated him kindly, only a select few did.

"You got me. I actually just got here yesterday morning. I used to travel all around the world with my brother and my mom. We are originally from here, but we left before I was born." Akira said while taking in the sights around her that she had only heard about through stories from her mother. It was nice to be the place where her parents grew up and met.

She noticed all the cold glares directed to the boy next to her and was not happy about it . She released a bit of killing intent, not enough for the villagers to pee their pants but enough for them to look away. Naruto was shocked at this action because it was not everyday that someone would stand up for him.

"Interesting," he commented.

"So, why do you act like an idiot all the time?" She asked with a grin on her face. The boy was clearly not stupid. His eyes flashed with intelligence despite his idiotic grin.

"I'll tell you in a more private place, when we are done with our ramen," Naruto said as they reached their destination, Ichiraku Ramen. They entered and was immediately greeted by Teuchi and his daughter Ayame.

"Who is this Naruto? Finally gave up on the Haruno?" Teuchi asked when he saw Naruto enter with Akira. Naruto was frequent customer, the cook together with his daughter had treated as family eversincme the boy was young. The cook was always reminded of the Yondaime whenever he saw the boy. He too had passed by the stand frequently.

"Never old man. This is Akira, my new teammate." Naruto replied with his overly happy voice as he settled into his seat.

"Nice to meet you Akira. What can I get for you?" He asked the black headed girl. She was newcomer but any friend of Naruto was always a pleasure to have over.

"I'll take a bowl of Shoyu Ramen please" She replied as she took in the warm ambiance that the small ramen stand gave off. It felt so comforting that she had almost let her guard down but she like Naruto, knew better than to be overly comfortable.

"A bowl of Miso Ramen, old man." Naruto said with enthusiasm.

With that the ramen chef started to prepare their pair started talking about trivial such as how Sasuke's hair looks like the butt of a chicken. This brought out laughter from the cook and his daughter. Their food arrived and they immediately ate the whole bowl.

"That was good," Akira said, after finishing her third bowl as she reached to drink from her tea.

"I told you so, " Naruto replied, just finishing his fifth bowl. His stomach was practically endless. It was a miracle at how much he ate but remained in shape. If the boy were to be a normal civilian he would have been overweight by now.

"Let's get going, we still need to have that talk," Akira tells her blonde companion, who was patting his belly. She rolled her eyes at the scene.

"But I wanted some more," He whined, giving Akira a childish pout.

She gave him a pointed look and payed for their meals before taking their leave. The pair made their way back to the Academy, they went up to the roof and hid in the trees to have their talk. "So why do you act like an idiot? I know for fact that you are stronger and smarter than more than half of the genin in there." Akira asked curiously, looking at the blonde sitting beside her.

"The council will know somethings up and they'll send me to jail for various reasons." Naruto said to her telling her the partial truth of his situation with Kurama. Oddly enough, she gave him a nod not questioning further.

"Anyways, how did you know that I was just acting like an idiot? I have fooled most of the village."

"I can tell that you were acting because it is something I'm very familiar with. My family did missions outside of the village and were usually undercover to get intel," she replied giving him the bare minimum of what her family did.

She unconsciously shivered as if remembering something she did not want. Noticing her discomfort he moved on, "Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me that. Let's stop with the personal questions."

From then on only innocent questions were asked to each other. This went on until the two saw that it was time for them to head back.

'So she's a sensor, her parents are dead and her brother is a newly instated ANBU, and she likes sleeping. She's interesting but she seems to be hiding something, she wasn't exactly curious when I mentioned the council. It is as is she already knew,' This what our blonde thought concerning his new found friend.

'He's an orphan, has a fast healing rate, interested in a certain Hyuuga heiress and wants to be Hokage. He is very sharp. I have to be careful around him,' Akira thought to herself as they walked back down to the parties had something to hide and they respected but that did change the fact that they were curious as to what it is.

"I have to act like an idiot again. Talk to you later," With that the logical and smart Naruto disappeared and the idiot Naruto took his place. Akira was impressed by the blonde's acting skills. She entered first and sat down in a far off chair at the back, coincidentally she sat beside Shikamaru who was sleeping. She put her arms down and went to sleep as well.

Meanwhile Naruto finally entered the room, he announced his arrival and went to sit beside his 'beloved' Sakura. Sakura noticed his arrival and said "Get away Naruto! That seat is reserved for Sasuke-kun!"

"But Sakura-chan," He said in an annoying voice.

At that moment the famed Uchiha entered the room, without even sparing Sakura a glance he went to take a seat by the window.

"See this all your fault Naruto!" Sakura practically screamed in Naruto's then got up and hurried to sit next to Sasuke but she was beaten to it by Ino, so she sat behind him instead, getting as close as she could get to the boy.

"Sakura-chan! Why did you leave me for Sasuke-teme? All he does is brood and pretend to look cool." Naruto whines, following after her like a lost puppy. Sakura stood up and hit Naruto at the back go his head and sat back down in her chair. Naruto proceeded to over-exaggerate about the hit on his head. After that, he finally went to sit next to a certain Hyuuga and pretended to sulk.

Hinata was surprised that her crush sat next to her, she was literally about to faint. She forced herself to stay awake because she wanted to talk to him but she was to shy to even start a conversation. So she just looked down and started to poke her fingers together, a habit of hers that she did whenever she was nervous.

Naruto wasn't as oblivious as people thought, he noticed the beautiful girl beside him. He noticed him watching her since they beginning of the Academy, he heard all the soft encouragements she gave him in midst of the crowd that was bringing him down. He wanted to tell her that he felt the same way but he couldn't, it would show a flaw in his mask that he so carefully built up. But maybe one 's rant was ended when Kurenai entered the room. Everyone's attention was drawn to the beautiful jonin standing in front of them.

"Team 8, I'm your jonin instructor. Please follow me." With that Kiba, Shino and Hinata left the room following their instructor.

After a few minutes later Sarutobi Asuma entered the room to collect his genin, simply saying "Team 10, let's go, " before leaving with his team trailing after him.

Jonin instructors entered the room to collect their genin one by one. All the genin were with their joins except Team 7, who was still waiting for theirs to arrive. After a three hours of waiting, the remaining genin were clearly bored except Akira who was still sleeping.

Sasuke was still staring out the window but you could easily tell that he was annoyed by their instructor's lack of punctuality and a certain pink headed girl's attempts of starting conversations. Sakura on the other hand was still thinking of more ways to talk to her beloved, she too was getting annoyed by the instructor's lack of punctuality as well as a certain blonde's attempts of asking her out, which she rejected without any tact. Naruto on the other hand was already expecting this type of behaviour from the jonin when he simply heard the name Hatake Kakashi.

Naruto, still playing the idiot, set up a trap for their sensei as a form of punishment. He grabbed a chair and placed a dusty board eraser on the top of the sliding door, doing one of the oldest tricks in the book of pranking. He honestly didn't expect the jonin to fall for it. A few minutes passed and Akira finally woke up from her nap. She gave a look to Naruto, which went unnoticed by the rest of the occupants in the room. With that glance Naruto understood that the jonin was approaching.

The door was opened and the eraser dropped on the unsuspecting jonin, who was honestly too lazy to dodge. With the chalk dust still on his head he looked at the occupants of the room and said "My first impression of all of you is that I hate you. Meet me at the roof."

After that statement the jonin disappeared leaving only a swirl of leaves in his place. Sasuke immediately stood up and left with Sakura trailing after him. Naruto stood up, gave a look to Akira and started to run after Sakura. Akira merely trailed behind them without a care in the world.

Up on the roof a certain jonin was reading his favourite Icha-Icha Paradise book while waiting for his new subordinates to arrive. He was just about to turn to the next page when they arrived. They stood in front of him. He gestured them to sit down which they followed.

"So let's introduce ourselves, " The one eyed jonin stated, not taking an eye of his book.

"Why don't you go first Sensei? So we know how it's done," Sakura asked, still irritated at his tardiness but sucking up all the same.

"Okay. My name is Hatake Kakashi. I do not want to share my likes or dislikes with you, at least not yet. The four of you are too young to hear about my dreams for the future."

'We just learned his name…' The genin thought making their sweat drop.

"Okay let's start with you Pinky, " Kakashi said, referring to Sakura who seemed offended by the nickname but answered anyways.

"Hai. My name is Haruno Sakura. What I like is …" she said while mentally undressing a certain black haired boy, who was honestly freaked out by this.

"What I dislike is Ino-pig and Naruto-baka and …" she continued while glaring at the other girl on the team who obviously didn't care about the pink haired girl's hate towards her. This made the jonin laugh on the inside because it reminded him if how he acted when Gai would start spouting about being his eternal rival. He just didn't care and looks like neither did she.

"My dreams is to …" she continued while making a not so subtle glance at the Uchiha, blushing at the sight of his 'glorious' face. Poor guy.

"A-ano that's it."

The whole introduction made a certain black haired girl want to cut the bitch sitting next to her for being such a useless fangirl but she restrained herself. The jonin on the other hand knew that if this team passed he would have his work cut out for him.

"That's nice. Okay how about Brooding Chicken-Butt." Kakashi said referring to the last Uchiha,who was now furious and glaring at the jonin. The jonin loved getting under his genin's skin it was so entertaining.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. There are a few things that I like and many things I dislike. I don't have a dream, it's more of an ambition to kill a certain man and restore the honour of my clan," the Uchiha had an ominous look in his eye which lead Naruto to question his fellow genin's sanity. Well, nobody would be sane if they went through what he wen through.

"Well, you're a ball of sunshine. You're next Orange boy," The genin was not affected by the nickname and started to introduce himself.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I like cup ramen and Ichiraku's ramen. I dislike the three minutes it takes to prepare cup ramen. My dream is to become the best Hokage ever," Naruto introduced in a rapid manner, retaining his overly happy self.

"I see. You're up next Mummy, " He said nodding towards the last remaining genin.

"My name is Kojin Akira. I like to sleep and read. I dislike kuniochis who refuse to take their roles seriously, disrespectful people and people who judge others unfairly. My dream is to make my family proud with what I do with my life," Akira stated retaining her blank face but her eyes had fire in them as she spoke.

'So I have a fangirl, an avenger, a ramen obsessed jinchuuriki and a mysterious new girl. Things will be interesting if they pass.' Kakashi thought to himself.


	2. Chapter 2

After the brief explanation of the test they would have the next day that would determine their careers as ninja, the genin went their separate ways. Though before they left Kakashi said something that made the genin really think about how hard the test would be, " Training Ground 7 at 5 a.m. Don't be late and I advise you not to eat any breakfast either."

Sasuke left heading to his usual training with a certain pink headed fangirl following after him. Leaving Naruto and Akira, who were both still sitting down on the roof.

"I guess I'll be going now, " Akira said as she slowly stood up.

"See you tomorrow. By the way, you could show up at the training ground at around 9 and eat breakfast as well. Hatake Kakashi is known for always being late," Naruto replied while slowly getting up as well. With that the two ninja left, with Akira jumping off the building and Naruto simply using a shunshin.

Our blonde jinchuuriki shunshined to his training ground, it was one of the unused training grounds deep in the forest that people forgot existed. He began his training by creating a hundred shadow clones, dividing them into five groups. The first group would be doing chakra exercises, while the second group would be practicing nature transformation which he saw while watching Sarutobi Asuma practice. The third group on the other hand would be doing taijustsu exercises, with the fourth group would doing ninjutsu and the final group would be practicing sealing techniques. Along side them he did his conditioning seeing as it was the one thing that clones could not care over upon being dispelled.

This was obviously not training expected to be formulated and done by a mere genin, but of course Naruto was not a normal genin. Starting at his first year in the Academy he had already been sneaking into the Ninja Library to get the knowledge and techniques that the idiot teachers at the Academy wouldn't give him. Which led to endless nights of research to formulate the perfect regimen for himself.

He was lucky enough to learn the Kage Bunshin from the forbidden scroll which added another justu to his growing set of skills. He learned other jutsu from scrolls, mainly wind jutsu because that after all was his affinity.

Kurama helped too in his trainning by critiquing the boy. In other words insulting him, but that wasn't the way the blonde saw it. So he took it and practiced even harder.

This training routine was a new one that he put together upon learning that his bunshin learn what he learns which cut down his original training time by five hours. The boy worked at his abilities this hard everyday for the past years of his life. He could probably go against Chunins and Low Jonins and still win. This was a great feat for any ninja. On his spare time at night, he would only be reading to further increase his already vast boy still did the routine along side his a hardworking genius.

* * *

While all this was happening, Akira was walking through town to find a ninja shop. She stopped at a place called Haritatsu's Ninja Shop. It was a bit dusty looking outside but when she entered she was surprised to see everything clean and neat, the products being of the highest quality.

"Welcome to Hartitatsu's. I'm Haritatsu, how may I help you?" The man from behind the counter said politely, noticing the young girl enter his shop.

"I need some senbons and kunai. Do you have any Haritatsu-san?" Akira said in reply to the newly named Haritatsu as she observed his display.

"You are lucky young lady, I just got new stock of those. How many do you need?" Haritatsu said as he slowly stood up from his seat behind the counter, putting down the magazine he was previously reading.

"Fifty senbon and ten kunai please."

"Okay, let me just get some at the back for you," He said as he disappeared behind the curtain located behind the counter. He was back within a few minutes with the weapons she needed all wrapped up in boxes.

"So what is a kunoichi as young as you doing buying senbon?" The old man kindly asked out of genuine curiosity.

"I have a genin test tomorrow and I ran out of some,"

"If you don't mind can you throw some for me? I want to see the level of the genin these days." He said truly curious about the topic. Deep inside he had a feeling that this girl wouldn't be able to use the senbon properly and he just wanted to save her some money if she truly couldn't use them.

"No problem," Akira said as she drew out some senbon from holster. In a quick movement of her wrist she threw five at the same time aiming at the vital points of the dummy across the shop. Each senbon hit there mark, impressing Haritatsu.

"You got some skill, kid. Since I like you so much, I'll throw in ten extra senbon for free," Haritatsi said while pulling out a pack of senbon from under the counter.

"Thank you Haritatsu-san." Akira replied with a smile while bring out the amount of money for her purchases.

Before she left Haritatsu called out to her and said, "You should pass by sometime, I would like you to meet my daughter Tenten. I think you would make good training partners."

"Hai, I will come back soon."

With that Akira left and started to walk back to the apartment that she shared with her older brother, Hikari. She got home and was surprised to see that her brother was there, expecting him to be on duty. Hikari was like her, with black hair that was white at the end.

"How was your team placement?" He asked the moment she opened the door, not even looking up from his scroll.

"It was okay. I kinda got into a fight though, there was this fangirl who called me a bitch. So I put a kunai against her throat," Akira replied casually as she took off her ninja sandals and placed them by the door.

Hikari chuckled at his sister's antics knowing that he probably would have done the same and asked, "Who is in your team then?"

"The same fangirl whose name I didn't bother to remember, the Uchiha and Uzumaki Naruto."

"It's good you got on the same team as the Uzumaki, it was what Kaa-san hoped for."

"I know. So how was your mission?"

* * *

The sun had already set ages ago and Naruto was exhausted. He dispelled his clones group by group as not to get a sudden headache. As he did this his mind was filled with all the data and training that his clones did along side him. He progressed on all aspects of his training, especially with his nature transformation. He was finally getting the hang of making his wind chakra sharpen the kunai blade.

Finally worn out and out of chakra and exhausted since body conditioning was not something that clones could do for him, the blonde made his way back to his apartment. Not wanting to deal with any civilians that night he chose to pass on the rooftops, despite his exhaustion he gave one last push. Once he arrived on the roof if the complex he lived at, he slipped into the open hallway and unlocked the door to his room. To his luck it wasn't defaced this time.

He quietly crept into his room. After finishing off the banana that lay on the counter, he stripped himself from his clothes and hopped into the shower. The steady beat of the water had always had a calming effect on the blonde so his mind began to wander.

'How much should I hold back tomorrow? Should I hold back at all? I am not yet officially a ninja until I have passed it so it would best to keep in check until after we pass. There is no way I am not passing,' he thought as he absentmindedly rinsed the suds out of his hair. He stepped out soon after and began stocking his pouches will all the weapons he would need the next day.

Soon after, he finally lay in his bed and his exhaustion consumed him. He entered Kurama's room located deep into his mind which he convert to a forest a few years back upon the instruction of the demon."You need to work on your taijutsu stance, it's lousy. You leave your left side exposed because you put all the power on your right. You need to condition your body more before learning any complex just and work on your chakra control while you are at it. It's not bad but not great either," Kurama said as he lazed under a large tree. The demon's criticism was harsh but it was the truth. This was just the way their relationship worked.

"Hai, I will work on it."

With that he left the demon to himself. He fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

The next day Naruto woke up bright and early at around 8 a.m. He then began to get ready for the day, seeing as he already packed yesterday he only took a shower and had his breakfast. After twenty minutes he left his house and made his way to the training ground. It took all his strength not to laugh because when he got to Training Ground 7, he saw a very irritated Sakura and Sasuke who really came at 5 that morning.

"NARUTO-BAKA! WHY ARE YOU ONLY HERE NOW? KAKASHI-SENSEI TOLD US TO MEET HERE AT 5 A.M. THIS MORNING. ARE YOU THAT STUPID THAT YOU WOULD COME HERE THIS LATE?" Sakura screamed at Naruto as he approached the tree in the training ground where his other two teammates were sitting and waiting.

"Ahhh, I'm sorry Sakura-chan. I overslept. Is Kakashi-sensei here yet?" Naruto asked sheepishly as he sat down.

"Well he isn't yet. So, you are lucky Naruto-baka." She replied before turning away ending the conversation, happy with the amount of insulting and screaming she had done to Naruto.

After a few minutes of Naruto bugging Sakura by asking her out, Akira finally arrived.

"Good Morning," She said with a polite smile to all her teammates.

"Good Morning Akira-chan!" Naruto replied cheerfully with a wave.

"Good Morning?" Sakura answered back, completely shocked that the Kojin girl that almost killed her was being polite and smiling at her. She felt as if the other girl had something planned, it was very suspicious.

"Hn…" Sasuke replied, not bothering to respond properly.

Akira simply sat down with her back leaning against the tree and brought out a book and began reading. After an hour of waiting, Kakashi finally arrived. The genin were not to happy to say the least.

"YOU'RE LATE!" Naruto and Sakura screamed in unison at their instructor.

"I'm sorry, I got lost on the road of life," He replied while smiling underneath his mask, making his eye curve.

"LIES!" Naruto and Sakura screamed again. Their screaming in unison was disturbing and loud.

"Anyways, let me tell you the rules for this test. You see these three bells?" Kakashi said holding up the bells in his hand. The young genin nodded in response. "Your goal is to take them for me before noon, which is in two hours."

"But sensei, there are four of us and only three bells." Sakura pointed out. Always the know it all.

"You didn't let me finish. The one who doesn't get a bell before noon will be sent back to the Academy. They will also be tied up on that stump over there and they shall watch all of you eat lunch." It was sadistic, but Kakashi found it entertaining. It was a tradition that had been going on even before Minato-sensei. It gave him bittersweet nostalgia about his genin days.

At that exact moment Sakura and Sasuke's stomach grumbled. Kakashi looked at the other two genin with anger and said, "So you didn't listen to my orders?" He had to play the part, and he played it very well.

"You only advised us to not eat breakfast," Akira stated while placing her book back into her pouch, turning her attention to the jonin.

"It's good that you two have common sense," Kakashi said, shocking Sakura and Sasuke. The idiot having more common sense than them? Impossible. They were the 'smartest'' ones in the Academy right?

"What do you mean? Shouldn't they be punished for not following orders?" Sakura complained, finding it unfair that the two 'idiots' were being praised instead of the 'real geniuses' who had followed the rules.

"No, these two were smart enough to read beneath the underneath and know how to assess the situation," Kakashi said, impressed by their display of smart thinking. Maybe they will pass after all. This led to Naruto and Akira on the receiving end of Sakura and Sasuke's glares. Akira merely yawned and Naruto played stupid as he usual does. The blonde inwardly laughed at their naivety.

"Okay, enough about that. The test begins now," with that all the genin immediately disappear from the view of the of the genin take cover, Sakura and Sasuke both crouched down by the bushes far apart from each other while Naruto and Akira up in the trees. Akira started climbing in the direction where Naruto was hiding. She got there quickly and immediately sat next the young blonde.

"He's obviously trying to make us work against each other. It's impossible for a genin to against a jonin alone, four genin on the other hand might have a chance, " the blonde stated his assessment of the situation.

"Exactly what I was thinking, but we have a problem. We don't have four genin, there is only two of us. Sasuke and Sakura won't help," Akira replied, already knowing the nature of their other two teammates. They were easy to that exact moment a loud high-pitched scream was heard throughout the training ground.

"Looks like Haruno's down," Akira says with a chuckle.

"She wouldn't have helped us anyways. The two of us will suffice," he tersely stated, "So here is the plan," The blonde began to whisper in Akira's ear, who nodded in understanding at the plan.

On the other side of the training ground, Sasuke was in the process of having his ass handed to was barely even trying, but at least he put his book away. Sasuke was engaging him seriously with each kick, punch with effort. The young genin did a kick to the head, followed by a punch to the gut. His attacks were all blocked, but for a split second, he was able to touch the bells. But he had a trump card, he quickly made the signs.

"**Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu**"

He threw in kunai and shuriken in the direction of Kakashi's position, only to hit a wood. The jonin was nowhere to be seen. Sasuke was immediately pulled into the ground by one of Kakashi's clones, leaving a Sasuke looking like a decapitated head in the ground.

Kakashi then left Sasuke to find the two remaining genin to teach them a lesson as well. Somewhere in the woods, Sakura just woke up from the genjustsu Kakakshi put her under. She was still shaky seeing as she thought that her precious Sasuke-kun was went on her way to find him. After a few minutes of looking, she found him in the ground, seemingly decapitated and she fainted once again.

On the other side of the training ground, Naruto and Akira just finished setting up their plan. A kage bunshin of Naruto was on the ground walking around, catching the attention of the jounin while the two genin were following him. To avoid being sensed and caught, Akira masked their chakra signatures with ease. They were sitting in a tree waiting for the bunshin and the jounin to make contact.

"He's near," Akira alerted Naruto who was watching the clouds.

"Okay, let's do this," Naruto replied as he jumped down the tree and into the bushes. The jounin approached Naruto's bunshin who was now hanging upside down in a tree. The clone kept on struggling, making the skit as believable as possible.

"You really seize to amaze me. I didn't think you were this stupid," Kakashi stated, his eyes still trained on his book. Naruto let his mask fall for that moment, "Oh, but I'm not." With a smirk from the bunshin, he dispelled himself. While Kakashi was still in the smoke, a few unexpected senbon were able to embed themselves in his arms.

Once the smoke cleared he saw Naruto standing before him. Without any delay they engaged in combat. Kicks and punches were exchanged, a few senbon even hit their mark. Kakashi grew bored and began to take things seriously. Up in the tree, Akira was getting ready for her part of the plan.

Kakashi disappeared and reappeared behind Naruto and performed his justu, "**A Thousand Years of Pain!**" In ever sense it was an idiotic justu, but it would be enough to deal with the dead last of the Academy, or so he thought. Instead of flying off like expected, Naruto disappeared with a poof.

'Another bunshin? I have been underestimating these kids too much. Looks like that Kojin girl is helping him judging from the senbon. They have teamwork, looks like I might pass a team this year,' Kakashi thought, impressed. It has been awhile since he had to be this serious, which really wasn't all that much, when it came to genin. The moment he put his book away, more senbons came out from all sides but he successfully dodged most of them. At this moment both Akira appeared in front of him.

"You need to polish up on your aim Akira. You didn't hit any vital spots," Kakashi critiqued the young girl as he pulled out the senbon.

"You sure sensei?" She replied with a condescending smirk. At that moment the fatigue hit Kakashi, it was too much to make him faint but enough to disorient him.

"Poison coated senbon?"

There was no reply. She instead drew a hilt out of her pouch. The thing that confused the other ninja there was that it had no blade. She put the portion of where the blade was supposed to be against the tattoo on her wrist and it seemed to glow. As she pulled the hilt away her wrist, making it seem as if she was pulling a white blade out of her tattoo. Out came a blade of a scythe, an unusual choice of weapon.

'Kekkei-Genkai huh. So she's related to that new ANBU recruit, Hikari that Tenzou has been talking about. This will be interesting.' Kakashi mused.

She then charged at him. At that exact moment, Naruto also appeared behind Kakashi and charged as well. The two genin fought in harmony as they assaulted the jonin. With a round house from the blonde and a low slash to the ankles from the other. Naruto aimed a kick to the man's left side which his companion aided with the same to right side which left the jonin in tough spot, forced to block the both of them.

Just as he was about to fight back, both genin jumped away and retreated. 'They must have not fully thought out their plan.' Out of habit, he touched the bells attached to his waist but when he did they did not ring. He looked down and saw decoy bells. He looked up and saw Naruto holding the bells in his hand mockingly. At that exact moment the alarm rang, signalling the end of the test.

Kakashi collected the other two genin and put them in front of the stump. Naruto tossed one of the bells to Akira.

"Looks like these two pass seeing as they have bells" referring to Naruto and Akira, "while you two fail." This shocked Sasuke and Sakura, seeing as they both thought that they were the best in their class and they got beaten by the dead last and some unknown girl. This was unacceptable but they could not find anything to say.

"Sensei, we pass and fail as a team. So if Akira and I pass, so should they. I may not like that teme so much but we are still teammates and as Konoha shinobi, we don't abandon our comrades." Naruto said in reply. It was the boy's genuine belief.

"We've been underestimating you Naruto," Kakashi said, completely shocked at the wisdom the blond possessed. 'This boy is not what he seems, interesting. He reminds me so much of his father.'

"Those who disobey the rules are scum, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum. Remember that. Because of these two, you pass. We'll meet here again tomorrow at 7. Be ready," he instructed to the genin. With that the jonin shunshined away, leaving the genin to deal with each other.

"He's on to you. Might as well come clean about it now," Akira said to the blonde, ignoring the looks of their other teammates. It was high time after all.

"I think I will. The civilian council has no more hold on me since I'm officially a ninja," He said, ignoring their other teammates as well.

"We are right here! Stop talking as if we weren't!" Sakura shouted, clearly annoyed that they were talking about something and did not include her. She made a move to hit Naruto on the head, but something she did not expect happened. He caught her hand. Despite his belief he still did not like the two very much, especially Sakura.

"If you make a move to hurt me again, I will kill you. I'm not your fucking applies to you too, Uchiha," Naruto threatened calmly.

His face was smiling yet it wasn't the one she was accustomed to. He now stood tall making him seem taller than he was previously. The intelligence in his eyes shown even brighter than before and his posture was more guarded. This was no longer the stupid Naruto they knew from the Academy, in his place was stranger who looked the same. This was the real Uzumaki Naruto.

"Hn, you're still a dobe. You don't scare me!" Sasuke stated, not intimidated by the sudden personality change.

"Oh really?" Naruto's smile becoming menacing.

At that moment Naruto released a portion of his killing intent, a trick he learned from Kurama. The air grew thick and Sasuke was unable to move. It reminded of the massacre years ago. He could almost smell the blood. He could picture the unmoving bodies of his mother and father. The cold eyes of his older brother. But the instant was over and the air quickly reverted back to normal seeing as Naruto shunshined away leaving leaves in his stead. Akira followed his suit. Sasuke then left the field confused at what just happen with a crying Sakura in his wake.

They were given a peek of what was under the mask of the conundrum that is Uzumaki Naruto and it was not what they expected. In a tree a few miles away a certain Hatake witnessed the while thing. 'This boy is not what he seems. I'm must talk to the Sandaime about this.'

Far away in the Hokage Tower, Sarutobi Hiruzen was laughing at the blonde's long awaited outbreak.

'Looks like Naruto-kun got tired of acting. It's the right time to reveal himself anyways. He is right in saying that the Civilian Council no longer has any say in any decisions concerning him anymore. The Shinobi Council will have the authority on him now and I'm sure that none of them will do anything to harm him,' Hiruzen assessed.

'A genius is about to come out of hiding.'

* * *

As Naruto was walking through the town, he felt all the glares from the locals. He could hear their whispers. But Naruto had an advantage on them now, he was officially declared a ninja and by law, it states that the civilians are not allowed to attack ninja. Unless they wanted to face Morino Ibiki or receive certain penalties. As he was walking he could feel someone following him, watching him.

With a calculated stretch, he looked back and saw a certain Hyuuga heiress following smiled at the thought and disappeared from the crowd.

Hyuuga Hinata was confused by the fact that he disappeared like that. She began to look around in vain. She then felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around. Naruto was standing behind her with a polite smile and asked, "Hinata-chan, instead of following me, would you like to join me for some ramen?"

She immediately turned red because she was found out and started to poke her fingers together. "T-that would be nice Naruto-kun,"she replied. It wasn't everyday that her crushed asked her out so he immediately agreed. They then walked in the direction of Ichiraku Ramen.

"So Hinata-chan, how is your team?"Naruto asked, breaking the ice. This was the first time they had spoken properly.

"A-ano, they are nice teammates. H-how about yours?" She said as she turned red due to the fact that she was talking and was about to eat with the person she had a crush on since the Academy. Though she was questioning the sudden personality change, it was the same Naruto but more toned down and mature.

"Let's just say my team won't be peaceful. I mean I have Sasuke-teme and Sakura. Akira is the only one I get along with."

'He's complaining about Sakura-san. Doesn't he like her? I hope he doesn't develop feeling for Akira-san.' Hinata thought to her self. Before she could reply, they already reach the ramen stand. They entered and were immediately greeted with warm smiles by the ramen chef and his daughter.

"You finally gave up on that Haruno?" Teuchi teased as he brought them some water.

"Never liked her in the first place, old man." Naruto replied with a laugh. The ramen chef laughed as well.

"Good afternoon Hyuuga-san. What would you like to order?" He ordered their ramen and the chef got cooking.

Naruto and Hinata engaged in light conversation, talking about their likes and dislikes. Halfway through the meal, Hinata got comfortable with Naruto and finally stopped stuttering. After their meal, Naruto insisted that he payed for Hinata. This made Hinata blush, she wanted to refuse but after years of watching Naruto, she knew how stubborn he could get.

* * *

Across town on empty hill lay Kojin Akira. She was watching the clouds pass, taking in the breeze and the scenery. She then sensed someone approaching her spot but she made no effort to move. It was after all the perfect spot, the tree provided her shade but did not obstruct her view. A few minutes later a boy appeared. He was confused by the fact that the new girl was in his spot.

"I didn't know that other people came up here,"Akira mused.

"I actually come here a lot," the boy replied as he lay down a bit farther from her.

"You are a genin too. I saw you the other day in the room. What's your name?" she questioned, really not knowing his name as she continued watching the clouds.

"Nara Shikamaru," he said in reply. He was surprised at her calm nature, it was a sharp contrast from her attitude with Sakura in the classroom.

"I'm Kojin Akira. Nice to meet you," she said politely as she kept her eyes trained on the passing clouds.

"Like wise," he said with a slight smile.

"I'm sorry for taking your spot Shikamaru-san, but I think I'm going to be coming up here often,"she said, guessing that he came to the hill a lot. It was the ideal place to watch the clouds, or just take a nap.

"That's alright Akira-san and you can just call me Shikamaru."

"Then you just call me Akira."

Back in the park, Naruto and Hinata spent the rest of the afternoon together, just talking. Before they knew it, it was already dark. Naruto insisted that he walked her home because it was late, fully knowing that she could handle herself but he insisted none the less.

This caused the Hyuuga to blush once more at his display of chivalry and manners. She was liking this Naruto as much as she liked the Naruto at the Academy. Maybe she was liking this Naruto more than she liked the previous one.

As they drew close to the entrance of the Hyuuga residence, the young Uzumaki stopped walking and said, "You know Hinata-chan, I was pretending to be someone I'm not in the Academy. But right now, I'm being who I really am and I want to tell you something."

Hinata stopped walking as well and asked, "What do you want to tell me?"

"Come closer and I'll tell you."

She came closer. He kissed her on the cheek and said, "See you tomorrow, Hinata-chan," he then shunshined away, leaving a red Hinata.

"He never told me what he wanted to say," she said in shock as she held her cheek. Later that night as she went to sleep, she only dreamt of a certain boy with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Back in Naruto's apartment he also thought of a certain girl with short dark blue hair and white eyes with a hint of lavender.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, Team 7 was due to have their first team meeting in the training ground they fought at the previous day. After yesterday Sakura and Sasuke learned their lesson about their sensei's habit of turning up late and turned up an hour after 7. Unfortunately for them, they both still ended up being early. Poor souls.

Akira came an hour after them and she greeted them as politely as she did the previous day. The fact that she did this still surprised Sakura because the same girl that threatened to kill her a few days ago was capable of being polite. It was suspicious. Akira laughed inwardly at Sakura's reaction to her greeting and sat down under a tree and brought out a book.

Naruto arrived a few minutes after Akira. He greeted his teammates in the same polite manner that Akira did before him, not bothering to start any conversations. He sat near her and brought out a scroll of his own and began reading. He was immersed in his scroll regarding the nature of wind chakra.

As soon as they saw Naruto's face, the two other genin were reminded of the incident the previous day. Sakura was almost tempted to go over and make the boy apologise to her and Sasuke but the she refrained herself. The cold blue eyes found their way back into her eyes and that was what kept her still.

While all the genin of Team 7 were waiting for a certain jonin to arrive at the training ground, the Hatake was actually at the Hokage Tower.

"What brings you to my office Kakashi-kun?" Hiruzen asked as he glanced up from his paperwork, when Kakashi opened the door and stepped into his office.

"I have something to report about Uzumaki Naruto and a few questions regarding Kojin Akira."

"Ah, I hope he didn't pull a prank again. You know he only does that for fun. Don't take it so personally but if you wish I could give him some sort of punishment. Maybe be cleaning up the monument again. I think I still see a bit of paint left," the Hokage said as he returned to his paperwork, seeing as so many people visit him because of that reason.

"He didn't pull any prank Sandaime-sama. I just think he's hiding something," the Hatake says. "I've read his file in the Academy. He's supposed to be the dead last in his class, yet yesterday he showcased smarts and skills well past his age," he reported.

"Look underneath the underneath, Kakashi. Aren't you the one who says that?" the wise Hokage questioned with a slight smirk as he continued on with his paperwork. That gave Kakashi the indication that the Sandaime knew about what Naruto had been hiding his abilities.

"As for Akira-kun, this scroll has everything you need to know," the Sarutobi handed him a black scroll from under his desk, "Now you must be going. All your students are already there and I think being three hours late is more than enough," the Sandaime said with a smile.

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

The jonin pocketed the scroll intending to read it before reaching the training ground. He walked out of the office and proceed to the training ground. As he walked he couldn't help but think of the teamwork displayed by Naruto and Akira the day before. This is team had potential and he fully intends to make the best that they can possibly be. What makes this team so special that he actually wants to train them? He didn't know quite settled under a tree a few miles from the assigned training ground and opened the scroll it's contents were not what he expected.

As he arrived in the training ground, he was greeted with a loud scream from Sakura, an annoyed glare from Sasuke and small polite grins from Akira and Naruto, "Okay, let's get training started. I'm going to teach you how to climb trees," Kakashi stated.

"But we already know how to do that," Sakura interrupted. She couldn't belive that he was going to teach them something so simple, but she held all she wanted to say not wanting to anger the jonin.

"Let me finish. I'm going to teach you how to climb trees without hands. Let me show you," The jonin then proceed to walk up the tree with ease.

"You have the whole day to do this. Use these kunai to mark your progress," he said as he tossed the weapons to the genin who all caught them effortlessly.

Sasuke took off immediately and made it about a meter off the ground before falling. He smirked at the rest of his teammate as if challenging them. Sakura walked up as well but she started to sweat so she sat on one of the branches. She smirked down at them as well.

Naruto rolled his eyes at their behaviour before heading up the nearest tree with ease. Akira followed his suit and did the same. Soon enough the two were no longer visible. Sasuke was annoyed because the 'idiots' were able to get up and he wasn't. In his mind none of them were supposed to be greater than him because they weren't Uchiha. He ran up the tree once more only to get the same result.

"Sensei, was that good enough?" Sakura asked, breathing heavily as she sat on one of the branches.

"I must say, you have pretty good chakra control for a genin but you don't have enough chakra and stamina. I want you continue going up and down that tree until you really can't do it anymore. We have to get your reserves up," Sakura frowned at this because she would be sweating heavily in front of her crush but begrudgingly followed anyways.

Kakashi observed his genin from above his book. He watched Sasuke going at it with vigour, yet the boy still failed. The Uchiha kept putting too much power in each step, resulting in the bark breaking underneath him, 'I'll give him some time, if he doesn't figure it out in an hour then I'll teach him. I can afford to baby him just because he is the last Uchiha.'

"Naruto, Akira, please come down," In an instant two blurs came down from the top of the trees. An orange one followed by a black one. They both landed soundlessly on the ground in front of Kakashi.

"You two have experience with this. Can you both do water walking as well?" He confirmed with the two young genin before him. 'At least these to aren't much of a bother. '

"Hai, Kakashi-sensei," They responded in unison. Kakashi liked the seriousness that these two possessed. He just wondered how he could get Sakura as motivated as the rest of her teammates.

"Okay then, the two of you work on your taijutsu with these clones," he said as he created three kagebunshin. Two for Naruto and one for Akira. He noticed that in the test the day before, she would always be using weapons. Naruto on the other hand was very capable with his taijutsu, albeit it was almost like brawling he needed to focus more on defending.

"Akira, before you do that. I have a few questions for you," She nodded and they walked further away from the rest of the team.

"What do you need to know sensei?" She asked as she leaned against a tree.

"About your Kekkei Genkai, what does it do exactly? The scroll that I received from the Sandaime wasn't very informative, "

"All members of the Kojin clan inherit the Kekkei Genkai, but we never named it. We have a strong affinity to all chakra. Our bodies end up creating too much and it is very potent making it easier for us to manipulate them in to shapes. We store them through the triangle seals we have tattooed into our bodies. One on the wrist and another on the neck for me. The more we store the more the tattoo spirals around, the whiter the hair. Some of us also have the ability to take away chakra from others by just touching them."

She lightly poked his arm and a small amount of chakra floated above her finger. He watched as it slowly turned white under and condensed into a sphere. She pulled up her sleeve and revealed a triangle tattoo on her wrist. She pressed the sphere against it's centre and the tattoo spiralled further around her arm.

"It's been awhile since I've seen this in action. The last time was an ANBU that worked closely with the Yondaime. Was Owl your relative?" the Hatake asked, curiously. He worked along side him when he was serving in the ANBU. Owl was in his team, a good man.

"Hai, he was my father," Akira replied with a sad smile.

"My condolences," Kakashi said immediately, " We can return to the others now."

The genin were training seriously, at least most of them were. An hour has passed and Sasuke was not making fast progress, always adding too much chakra which Kakashi pointed out to him. After a few more falls, Sasuke was able to walk up with ease and was running up and down the tree. Kakashi moved him to water walking, deeming that he was ready.

Sakura on the other hand was resting because she insisted that she couldn't make it any further. The jonin did not want to push her the point of chakra depletion. Not like that would be a problem since she could just be given more courtesy of Akira. But he did not want to treat the girl as a personal chakra bank.

Naruto was still going at it with the clones, his punches and kicks still being blocked but he was getting more and more creative on finding ways to land a hit. His defence was slowly getting better as well, seeing as he was getting hit less than when he started. He was closer to figuring out his fighting style. Akira on the other hand wasn't faring as well as Naruto was against the clone, but she was able to block the hits being thrown at her. Her attack needed some work.

'These kids are giving it their all, but Sakura isn't fairing as well as the others. She needs to understand what being a kunoichi really means and I know just know the people who can help her with that,' Kakashi thought to himself as he pretended to be absorbed in his book. 'But it is too early for that. She won't listen yet.'

Before they knew it was already nearing sunset. "Okay, that's enough. I have something for you guys."

All the genin immediately assembled in front of Kakashi. "Starting today, all of you will be following this training regimen," he said handing them each a piece of paper. "I expect all of you to follow this everyday. I'm also going to give you these," he continued as he handed them four thin black bands each.

"What are these, Sensei?" Akira asked curious about the bands that now lay in her hands along with the paper that was handed to her.

"Yeah, they are so ugly and unfashionable." Sakura added, agreeing with her teammate for the first time.

"Those are bands which I have put gravity seals on. You wear one on each wrist and ankle. I will then activate the seals making them heavier. Basically, they will do what weights do but without all the bulk. I will also increase the weight when I think you are ready," the Hatake said all in one breath. He thanked Gai for giving him the idea of giving them weights.

'This are a better option versus getting actual weights. Cheaper too,' Naruto thought to himself inwardly thanking his sensei.

"That's it for today. Meet all of you here tomorrow, same time," With that the jonin shunshined away leaving leaves in his place.

"Would you like to get something to eat Naruto?" Akira asked her blond teammate.

"I would love to. Ramen?" He replied as they walked away leaving their other two teammates. His female teammate agreed with a nod.

"That was tough training. I'm not too good with taijutsu," the Kojin confessed.

"I'm not too good with weapons. Maybe we could help each other?" The blonde suggested to his fellow teammate.

"That would be extremely helpful. Thank you," she said grateful from his began arranging their joint training details. Before they knew it they had reached the ramen stand. As they entered they were greeted with the cheerful smile of Teuchi and Ayame. Their orders were taken and the old cook set out to cooking.

"Different girl again? Naruto you're such a player!" Ayame teased.

The Kojiin smirked at this and said, "Who was he out with? Let me guess. A certain Hyuuga heiress?"

Ayame and Akira began having a in-depth discussion on what the blonde did the day before. Naruto on the other hand rolled his eyes and began talking to the older chef, "So when are you meeting her again?" Ayame asked, catching all their attention.

"I don't know actually. I just said that I would see her tomorrow so I hope that she would come here," he confessed, blushing just at the thought of her. Despite his relaxed demeanour around Hinata, he was nervous too. The heiress was too cute to handle.

This made the two girls look at each other and they began to lecture Naruto on how to properly talk to girls. "You don't just leave them guessing, they might take that as a sign that you are just being nice and forcing yourself to talk to them!"

"I think she's outside," Akira said interrupting her joint lecture with Ayame. Naruto immediately got off his seat and headed outside. He saw Hinata almost instantly, "Won't you come join us, Hinata-chan?"

The said girl blushed at that fact that she was found out by her crush but nodded anyways. Naruto parted the curtain for her and she entered blushing at his manners. "What would you like Hyuuga-san?" Ayame asked as the Hyuuga took a seat on the otherside of Naruto. The heiress answered softly and they began cooking.

"I don't think we have met yet Hyuuga-san. Nice to meet you I'm Naruto's teammate, Kojin Akira," the said girl said as her order was put down in front of her.

"N-nice to meet you Kojin-san. I'm Hyuuga Hinata," the blue haired answered nervously albeit two kunoichi hit it off and were very comfortable with each other in a matter of minutes. Hinata had stopped stuttering and was holding the conversation with the group. Naruto was smiling the whole time at the fact that Hinata wasn't shy around him anymore.

"I hate to leave now but I have to get home to my brother," Akira said as she put down money to cover her meal and thanked the chef and his daughter. "I'll see you soon, Hinata-san. See you at training Naruto."

Akira was leisurely walking home when she heard someone call her name. She turned and found that it was the Nara she met yesterday. He just came out of the Yakiniku restaurant with the rest of Team 10. His teammates looked at him like he had a death wish, remembering the encounter with Sakura. Asuma just looked at the girl curiously.

"What are you doing here?" Shikamaru asked lazily, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He didn't even know why he just called her out. Weren't girls supposed to be troublesome?

She greeted his team politely and then replied saying, " I'm walking home from the ramen stand. Why?"

Shikamaru turned to his team and bid goodbye and the team walked away. "I'll bring you home."

"You don't need to. I'll be fine," she told him, feeling bad that he was leaving his team because of her. She would be fine by herself she thought to herself, she was used to it. He sighed at her stubbornness, "I insist, my mom would kill me if she found that I let a girl go home on her own and that would be very troublesome."

Akira had no choice but to agree and they walked together. There was a comfortable silence between them as they headed in the direction of the kunoichi's house. 'Why am I doing something this troublesome for this girl? I literally just met her. What a drag,' he thought to himself. He was going out of his way to do something troublesome for a girl he just met. This was not normal for the young Nara. Before he knew it they reached an apartment complex.

She turned to him and said, " Thank you for accompanying me, Shikamaru. Good night." With a small smile she was off.

"Oh and maybe you should tell your teammates to come out of the shadows," she said to him with a small smirk and a wink as she disappeared up the stairs of the building.

"How did she know that we were her? It's all because of you Choji!" Ino exclaimed, getting mad at the Akimichi boy who was still munching on his chips.

Shikamaru had a small smile on his face as they all walked home.

* * *

After Akira left, Naruto and Hinata stayed for a bit more until Hinata was finished with her food then they left. Naruto insisted on bringing the girl home and he did the day before.

"I really like being with you Hinata-chan," The blonde stated as they walked. The leaves were rustling, their surrounding was peaceful and calm. This was a different setting compared to the loud bustling street in the morning. In the morning they would certainly get stares from the civilians. The shinobi among them would even go as far as to asking if the blonde jinchuriki was disturbing the young young blonde liked the fact that they could just be in each others company without complications at night.

"I like being with you too Naruto-kun," she said back softly. She still couldn't believe that she was talking to the person she had been crushing on since the academy. Their relationship changed in an instant, from admiring to actual talking and seeming dates.

"Do you want to go out on Saturday?" Naruto asks her. "I know that's like at the end of the week but I think we are going to start being busy with our teams and missions. Don't you think?" he rambles.

"I would love that," she said all too quickly before blushing.

'She is too cute for her own good,' The fact that she immediately answered made the blonde smile.

"That's settled then, good night Hinata-chan. I'll pick you up on Saturday at 10. Sweet dreams," quickly giving her a hug before disappearing via shunshin.

* * *

During the span of the week all the members began following the regimen. It took a few days for them to settle into waking up early for their morning practice but they finally were finally able to move with the gravity seals albeit a bit slower than they used to. Their bodies always hurt at the end of the day and they were always dead tired, but it would all be worth it. Kakashi had already adjusted the seals of all the genin but Sakura.

They also did their first mission as a team during the week, resulting in a few scratches on faces of Sasuke and Naruto. The two boys could never look at cats the same ever again. They shook at the mere thought. They continued on with their training throughout the week. They took D-ranked missions everyday after morning training, leaving them with evenings off. But really they were all just doing more training, all except Sakura that is. Friday came quickly and they took on another mission.

"I hope that we actually get a decent mission this time," Naruto said out loud to nobody in particular as they walked to the mission briefing room.

"We don't really have a choice we're just genin, but I hope it isn't looking for that damn cat again," Akira replied. Sakura and Sasuke didn't mind their fellow genin. Sakura tried to start a conversation with her beloved but was shot down with an icy glare.

'We need to fix the tension here. There are literally two halves of the team, Naruto and Akira are getting along with each other but not with Sasuke and Sakura. Sasuke is just ignoring Sakura who's following him around like a lost puppy. How the hell do I fix this?' the Hatake thought as he read his book.

They were able to do two missions that day. Sasuke and Naruto were sent to help with some manual labor on a farm while the two girls were assigned to babysit for a civilian family. Kakashi sent a clone with the girls while he went with the boys. The tension between the two sides was nothing short of irritating. Naruto and Sasuke would turn everything into a competition and up fighting causing more damage. Akira and Sakura on the other hand would be talking at all and on the rare times that they did, Sakura would never be so lucky.

The boys' mission went relatively well seeing as they were able to complete their task of moving over a hundred sacks of rice in record time but they had to stay later and do more labor as compensation for the damage they caused to the farm when they decided to have a brawl. The girls' went relatively well since they had no physical fighting, but more than a few insults and threats were thrown at each other. Both pairs brought out the worst in each other.

The Team 7 genin needed to blow off steam, so as soon as they gave their respective mission reports they all headed to their separate ways.

The young Uchiha was working on his shurikenjutsu. He was deep in the forest, surrounded by numerous targets. It was the same practice that he saw Itachi do when he was younger. Though Sasuke despised the man and wanted nothing more than to kill him, this was the most effective way to practice. He closed his and jumped, he hit the targets at the centre even the one behind the rock but he did not hit the one on the tree on his left. It was a centimetre below the target.

He screamed in irritation, but he was not going to give up now, after all he had a man to kill. He also had something to prove not only to himself but to a certain blonde as well.

* * *

Naruto was in his training ground deep in the forrest. He created two hundred clones, they all separated into 5 groups as they usually did but now there were more of them in each. The young blonde created ten more clones and they just began fighting. He needed to let off some steam and this was the only way how without hurting anyone.

The blonde had something to prove. He wanted to be better and Sasuke pushed him to do that as they did to each other. He would be Hokage and he will prove the villagers wrong. He is not the demon. If only everyone took the time to understand each other, instead of making assumptions or believing what would be easier for them to understand.

He continued to train despite the exhaustion creeping up on him as he dispelled clone after clone of the ten that surrounded him. As soon as they were gone he created more to take their place. It was near midnight when he dispelled all of his clones, thoroughly exhausted. He lay on the grass in the centre of the empty trainning ground processing all the data.

No longer feeling as winded, he made his way home via the roofs. Once he had arrived, he went straight into the shower and to his bed. He collapsed on his bed falling immediacy to sleep. Kurama came into vision and gave his criticism once again before letting the blonde dream.

Kojin Akira was sitting on top of the Hokage Monument. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She focused on the village below her, trying to sense and differentiate the chakra signatures below her. She could vaguely feel the different signatures of the ninjas that were in the crowd below. Focusing even harder she let her mind be open to all the chakra around her. She saw a world of gray but the hazy blue showed her the presences of chakra in people.

She could feel the chakra of those in the Hokage Tower. She felt the Hokage in his office together with two ANBU. Their signatures were concealed but not well enough. She felt the faint chakra signature from the secretary who was a civilian guessing from the weak pulsing of her chakra.

It ceased to amaze the young Kojin how much possibilities there was in the world if she kept her mind open. This calmed her down and she continued this kind of practice until she could no longer stand the headache and headed home.

* * *

Haruno Sakura has always been smart, but she has always been insecure as well. She found that studying was something she was good at and that it would be enough for her career as a ninja. It was during her genin test when she got proved wrong. All her team members were able to put up a fight, except her that is.

Sakura willingly did self training that later afternoon, which surprised even herself. She worked on her chakra reserves as Kakashi suggested. She ran up and down the tall tree she found until she could no longer breathe. She sat on one of the high branches and let her mind wander. The stars had already come out and she looked at them as if they had the answers to all her problems, to all her insecurities.

'Sasuke-kun will still fall in love with me for my brains right? But the way he looks at me is as if I am only a hindrance to him. I don't know what to do anymore. Naruto, I don't even know who he is anymore. He's not the same person from the Academy. Maybe that Naruto never existed in the first place. Akira is a much more capable kunoichi than I will ever be. Kakashi-sensei doesn't know what to do with me. I'm dragging the whole team down.'

The young Haruno head down the tree and made her way back home. She had a lot to think about.

* * *

Naruto was awoken by the ringing of his alarm clock. He looked over and groaned, it was already five in the morning on a Saturday. It was time for trainning seeing as he had no time for it later in the day because of his date. His put on a plain white shirt and his bright-ass orange pants. He took an apple off the table and drank a glass of milk before beginning his morning training. The training was hell to say the least, he had to do 50 laps around the village for warm up. How the hell was the reasonable? But deep inside he knew it was necessary.

The trainning tired him out, and that was really saying something given his stamina. The young blonde was drenched in sweat when came back to his apartment at 8. He immediately took a shower. He changed into another white shirt and his only decent pair of black shinobi pants that he kept at the back of his closet.

After he had dressed, he had more breakfast which consisted of a bowl of oatmeal, two bananas, two more glasses of milk and another apple. A growing boy needs his food and milk he reasoned to himself. He was also informed by Kakashi that if he ate ramen all the time he wouldn't grow properly which the blonde genius failed to take in to consideration.

'I do not want that to happen. I'm already short as fuck, if I don't grow properly I'll be left behind by everyone else and nobody will take me as seriously as I would want them to.' Our blonde jinchuuriki was obviously overthinking. It was all because of the date he had with Hinata later. He couldn't keep still and began pacing on his floor.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

A bang then broke his trance-like state. It came from below, it was the young blonde's neighbour who he had never ever seen. Heck, he was the only one who lived the top floor because no one wanted to live in the same floor as the Kyuubi brat. It was odd enough when he found out that someone moved in below him two years ago.

'Might as well read a scroll to kill some time before I head over to Hinata's,'

He picked up a scroll regarding a Futon jutsu that had been meaning to learn. His ninjutsu was limited seeing as he wanted to make sure had good chakra control and condition before learning any justu which wise instead of pushing his body to learn something it was not ready for.

On the other side of town, Akira just returned from her morning training as well. Hers was slightly less intense since Kakashi took into consideration her difference in stamina but since hers was focused on chakra exercises which really tired her out to the point that her was purely black now. Not to mention she combined it with her regular training, she was really out of breath.

"Morning Akira," Hikari greeted as Akira entered the kitchen.

"Morning Onii-san. When did you get back?" She replied as she took a piece of toast off her brother's plate. He gave her a pointed glare but continued on eating.

"While you were out, are you up for some training later at 4? You can't slack off just because you are doing D ranked missions. You need more chakra in you by the way," he said with a mouthful of food. His younger sister rolled her eyes at his manners, or in this case lack thereof.

"Hai, I'll get more later. Where do I meet you?" she asked while getting the carton of milk out of the fridge. She poured him out a glass and handed it to him. This was her way of telling her brother that he was short, which he actually wasn't.

"Meet me here. We'll be using one of the ANBU training grounds," he said as he finished off his breakfast and the glass of milk before retreating back into his room to sleep off his mission.

"You're such a pain in the ass," the girl grumbled noticing the pile of dishes she now had to do. She drank two glasses of milk before washing the dishes that her brother had pilled up. After washing the dishes and a quick shower she head out to the hill she found earlier in the week. She was not surprised to find a certain pineapple-haired boy already laying there.


	4. Chapter 4

"It's good that you two have common sense," Kakashi said, shocking Sakura and Sasuke. The idiot having more common sense than them? Impossible. They were the 'smartest' ones in the Academy right?

"What do you mean? Shouldn't they be punished for not following orders?" Sakura complained, finding it unfair that the two 'idiots' were being praised instead of the 'real geniuses'.

"No, these two were smart enough to read beneath the underneath and know how to assess the situation," Kakashi said, impressed by their display of smart thinking. Maybe they will pass after all. This led to Naruto and Akira on the receiving end of Sakura and Sasuke's glares. Akira merely yawned and Naruto played stupid as he usual does.

"Okay, enough about that. The test begins now," with that all the genin immediately disappear from the view of the of the genin take cover, Sakura and Sasuke both crouched down by the bushes far apart from each other while Naruto and Akira up in the trees. Akira started climbing in the direction where Naruto was hiding. She got there quickly and immediately sat next the young blonde.

"He's obviously trying to make us work against each other. It's impossible for a genin to against a jonin alone, four genins on the other hand might have a chance, " the blonde stated his assessment of the situation.

"Exactly what I was thinking, but we have a problem. We don't have four genin, there is only two of us. Sasuke and Sakura won't help," Akira replied, already knowing the nature of their other two teammates. They were easy to that exact moment a loud high-pitched scream was heard throughout the training ground.

"Looks like Haruno's down," Akira says with a chuckle.

"She wouldn't have helped us anyways," he tersely stated, "So here is the plan," The blond began to whisper in Akira's ear. On the other side of the training ground, Sasuke was in the process of having his ass handed to him.

Kakashi was barely even trying, but at least he put his book away. Sasuke was engaging him seriously with each kick, punch with effort. The young genin did a kick to the head, followed by a punch to the gut. His attacks were all blocked, but for a split second, he was able to touch the bells. But he had a trump card, he quickly made the signs.

"**Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu,"** A fireball was launched at Kakashi. The flame consuming him. The Uchiha threw in kunai and shuriken in the direction of Kakashi's position, only to hit a wood. The jonin was nowhere to be seen. Sasuke was immediately pulled into the ground by one of Kakashi's clones, leaving a Sasuke looking like a decapitated head in the ground.

Kakashi then left Sasuke to find the two remaining genin to teach them a lesson as well. Somewhere in the woods, Sakura just woke up from the genjustsu Kakakshi put her under. She was still shaky seeing as she thought that her precious Sasuke-kun was went on her way to find him. After a few minutes of looking, she found him in the ground, seemingly decapitated and she fainted once again.

On the other side of the training ground, Naruto and Akira just finished setting up their plan. A kage bunshin of Naruto was on the ground walking around, catching the attention of the jounin while the two genin were following him. To avoid being sensed and caught, Akira masked their chakra signatures with ease. They were sitting in a tree waiting for the bunshin and the jounin to make contact.

"He's near," Akira alerted Naruto who was watching the clouds.

"Okay, let's do this," Naruto replied as he jumped down the tree and into the bushes. The jounin approached Naruto's bunshin who was now hanging upside down in a tree.

"You really seize to amaze me. I didn't think you were this stupid," Kakashi stated, his eyes still trained on his book. Naruto let his true self show for that moment, "Oh, but I'm not." With a smirk from the bunshin, he dispelled himself. While Kakashi was still in the smoke, a few unexpected senbon were able to embed his arms.

Once the smoke cleared he saw Naruto standing before him. Without any delay they engaged in combat. Kicks and punches were exchanged, a few senbon even hit their mark. Kakashi grew bored and began to take things seriously. Up in the tree, Akira was getting ready for her part of the plan.

Kakashi disappeared and reappeared behind Naruto and performed his justu. **"A Thousand Years of Pain!"**

Instead of flying off like expected, Naruto disappeared with a poof.

'Another bunshin? I have been underestimating these kids too much. Looks like that Kojin girl is helping him judging from the senbon. They have teamwork, looks like I might pass a team this year,' Kakashi thought, impressed. It has been awhile since he had to be this serious, which really wasn't all that much, when it came to genin. The moment he put his book away, more senbons came out from all sides but he successfully dodged most of them. At this moment both Akira appeared in front of him.

"You need to polish up on your aim Akira. You didn't hit any vital spots," Kakashi critiqued the young girl.

"You sure Sensei?" She replied with a smirk. At that moment the fatigue hit Kakashi, it was too much to make him faint but enough to disorient him.

"Poison coated senbon?"

There was no reply. She instead drew a hilt out of her pouch. The thing that confused the other ninja there was that it had no blade. She put the portion of where the blade was supposed to be against the tattoo on her wrist and it seemed to glow. As she pulled the hilt away her wrist, making it seem as if she was pulling a white blade out of her tattoo. Out came a scythe, an unusual choice of weapon.

'Kekkei-Genkai huh. So she's related to that new ANBU recruit, Hikari. This will be interesting.' Kakashi mused.

She then charged at him. At that exact moment, Naruto also appeared behind Kakashi and charged as well. The two genin fought in harmony. With a round house from the blonde and a low slash to the ankles from the other. They kept giving blow after blow, which the jonin dodged.

Just as he was about to fight back, both genin jumped away and retreated. 'They must have not fully thought out their plan.' Out of habit, he touched the bells attached to his waist but when he did they did not ring. He looked down and saw decoy bells. He looked up and saw Naruto holding the bells in his hand mockingly. At that exact moment the alarm rang, signalling the end of the test.

Kakashi collected the other two genin and put them in front of the stump. Naruto tossed one of the bells to Akira.

"Looks like these two pass seeing as they have bells" referring to Naruto and Akira, "while you two fail." This shocked Sasuke and Sakura, seeing as they both thought that they were the best in their class and they got beaten by the dead last and some unknown girl. This was unacceptable but they could not find anything to say.

"Sensei, we pass and fail as a team. So if Akira and I pass, so should they. I may not like that teme so much but we are still teammates and as Konoha shinobi, we don't abandon our comrades." Naruto said in reply, shocking everyone but Akira seeing as they already discussed it previously.

"We've been underestimating you Naruto," Kakashi said, completely shocked at the wisdom the blond possessed. 'This boy is not what he seems, interesting. He reminds me so much of his father.'

"Those who disobey the rules are scum, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum. Remember that. Because of these two, you pass. We'll meet here again tomorrow at 7. Be ready," he instructed to the genin. With that the jonin shunshined away, leaving the genin to deal with each other.

"He's on to you. Might as well come clean about it now," Akira said to the blonde, ignoring the looks of their other teammates.

"I think I will. The civilian council has no more hold on me since I'm officially a ninja," He said, ignoring their other teammates as well.

"We are right here! Stop talking as if we weren't!" Sakura shouted, clearly annoyed that they were talking about something and did not include her. She made a move to hit Naruto on the head, but something she did not expect happened. He caught her hand.

"If you make a move to hurt me again, I will kill you. I'm not your fucking bitch, that applies to you too, Chicken-Ass." Naruto threatened. His face was smiling yet it wasn't the one she was accustomed to. His eyes were different from before they were colder now as. His posture was different, he stood up straighter and with more grace, but he looked ready to pounce at any moment. The air around him changed, Sasuke noticed it as well. This was no longer the stupid Naruto they knew from the Academy, this was the real Naruto.

"Hn, you're still a dobe. Stop trying to be intimidating," Sasuke stated, not affected by the sudden personality change.

"Oh really?" Naruto's smile becoming menacing.


	5. Chapter 5

At that moment Naruto released a portion of his killing intent, a trick he learned from Kurama. The air grew thick and Sasuke was unable to move. It reminded of the massacre years ago. He could almost smell the blood. He could picture the unmoving bodies of his mother and father. The cold eyes of his older brother. But in an instant it was over and the air quickly reverted back to normal seeing as Naruto shunshined away leaving leaves in his stead. Akira followed his suit. Sasuke then left the field confused at what just happen with a crying Sakura in his wake.

They were given a peek of what was under the mask of the conundrum that is Uzumaki Naruto and it was not what they expected. In a tree a few miles away a certain Hatake witnessed the while thing. 'This boy is not what he seems. I'm must talk to the Sandaime about this.'

Far away in the Hokage Tower, Sarutobi Hiruzen was laughing at the situation.

'Looks like Naruto-kun got tired of acting. It's the right time to reveal himself anyways. He is right in saying that the Civilian Council no longer has any say in any decisions concerning him anymore. The Shinobi Council will have the authority on him now and I'm sure that none of them will do anything to harm him,' Hiruzen assessed.

"A genius is about to come out of hiding."

* * *

As Naruto was walking through the town, he felt all the glares from the locals. He could hear their Naruto had an advantage on them now, he was officially declared a ninja and by law, it states that the civilians are not allowed to attack ninja. Unless they wanted to face Morino Ibiki or receive certain penalties. As he was walking he could feel someone following him, watching him.

With a calculated stretch, he looked back and saw a certain Hyuuga heiress following smiled at the thought and disappeared from the crowd.

Hyuuga Hinata was confused by the fact that he disappeared like that. She began to look around in vain. She then felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around. Naruto was standing behind her with a polite smile and asked, "Hinata-chan, instead of following me, would you like to join me for some ramen?"

She immediately turned red because she was found out and started to poke her fingers together. "T-that would be nice Naruto-kun,"she replied. It wasn't everyday that her crushed asked her out so he immediately agreed. They then walked in the direction of Ichiraku Ramen.

"So Hinata-chan, how is your team?" Naruto asked, breaking the ice. This was the first time they had spoken since their younger days in the Academy. They were both nothing short of nervous.

"A-ano, they are nice teammates. H-how about yours?" She said as she turned red due to the fact that she was talking and was about to eat with the person she had a crush on since the Academy. Though she was questioning the sudden personality change, it was the same Naruto but more toned down and mature.

"Let's just say my team won't be peaceful. I mean I have Sasuke-teme and Sakura. Akira is the only one I get along with."

'He's complaining about Sakura-san. Doesn't he like her? I hope he doesn't develop feeling for Akira-san.' Hinata thought to her self. Before she could reply, they already reach the ramen stand. They entered and were immediately greeted with warm smiles by the ramen chef and his daughter.

"You finally gave up on that Haruno?" Teuchi teased as he brought them some water.

"Never liked her in the first place, old man." Naruto replied with a laugh. The ramen chef laughed as well. Hinata tuned even more red at their exchange, it wasn't everyday she heard things like this. It also implied a certain something that made the young Hyuuga blush even more. She had a feeling that she wouldn't be able to stop blushing.

"Good afternoon Hyuuga-san. What would you like to order?"

Naruto and Hinata engaged in light conversation, talking about their likes and dislikes. Halfway through the meal, Hinata got comfortable with Naruto and finally stopped stuttering. After their meal, Naruto insisted that he payed for Hinata. This made Hinata blush, she wanted to refuse but after years of watching Naruto, she knew how stubborn he could get.

* * *

Across town on empty hill lay Kojin Akira. She was watching the clouds pass, taking in the breeze and the scenery. She then sensed someone approaching her spot but she made no effort to move.

A few minutes later a boy appeared. He was confused by the fact that the new girl was in his spot.

"I didn't know that other people came up here," Akira mused.

"I actually come here a lot," the boy replied as he lay down a bit farther from her but not far enough to the point that the sunlight already hit him.

"You are a genin too. I saw you the other day in the room. What's your name?" she questioned, really not knowing his name as she continued watching the clouds. She might as well get know him if he came here a lot.

"Nara Shikamaru," he said in reply. He was surprised that she wasn't as troublesome as he thought she would be, judging from the display in the classroom. He saw what she did to Sakura, that was some scary shit.

"I'm Kojin Akira. Nice to meet you," she said politely.

"Like wise," he said with a slight smile. 'She's actually decent to talk to. I prefer her over Ino. It would be troublesome if anybody found out though,' the Nara silently thought to himself.

"I'm sorry for taking your spot Shikamaru-san, but I think I'm going to be coming up here often," she said. It was the ideal place to watch the clouds, or just take a nap. It was away from the noisy and bustling centre of the village, but not too far.

"That's alright Akira-san and you can just call me Shikamaru."

"Then you just call me Akira."

* * *

Back at the park, Naruto and Hinata spent the rest of the afternoon together, just talking. Before they knew it, it was already dark. Naruto insisted that he walked her home because it was late, fully knowing that she could handle herself but he insisted none the less. This caused the Hyuuga to blush once more at his display of chivalry and manners. She was liking this Naruto as much as she liked the Naruto at the Academy. Maybe she was liking this Naruto more than she liked the previous one.

As they drew close to the entrance of the Hyuuga residence, the young Uzumaki stopped walking and said, "You know Hinata-chan, I was pretending to be someone I'm not in the Academy. But right now, I'm being who I really am and I want to tell you something."

Hinata stopped walking as well and asked, "What do you want to tell me?"

"Come closer and I'll tell you."

She came closer. He kissed her on the cheek and said, "See you tomorrow, Hinata-chan," he then shunshined away, leaving a red Hinata.

"He never told me what he wanted to say," she said in shock as she held her cheek. Later that night as she went to sleep, she only dreamt of a certain boy with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Back in Naruto's apartment he also thought of a certain girl with short dark blue hair and white eyes with a hint of lavender.


	6. Chapter 6

The next day, Team 7 was due to have their first team meeting in the training ground they fought at the previous day. After yesterday Sakura and Sasuke learned their lesson about their sensei's habit of turning up late and turned up an hour after 7. Unfortunately for them, they both still ended up being early. They cursed at their new Sensei's lack of punctuality.

Akira came an hour after them and she greeted them as politely as she did the previous day. The fact that she did this still surprised Sakura because the same girl that threatened to kill her a few days ago was capable of being polite. It was suspicious. Akira laughed inwardly at Sakura's reaction to her greeting and sat down under a tree and brought out a book. Naruto arrived a few minutes after Akira. He greeted his teammates in the same polite manner that Akira did before him. He sat near her and brought out a scroll of his own and began reading.

As soon as they saw Naruto's face, Sakura and Sasuke immediately remembered the incident the previous day. Sakura was about to go over and hit him for disrespecting her and her beloved Sasuke-kun but she refrained herself. She remembered the cold look in his eyes.

While all the genin of Team 7 were waiting for a certain jonin to arrive at the training ground, the Hatake was actually at the Hokage Tower.

"What brings you to my office Kakashi-kun?" Hiruzen asked as he glanced up from his paperwork, when Kakashi opened the door and stepped into his office.

"I have something to report about Uzumaki Naruto."

"Ah, I hope he didn't pull a prank again. You know he only does that for fun. Don't take it so personally but if you wish I could give him some sort of punishment. Maybe be cleaning up the monument again. I think I still see a bit of paint left," the Hokage said as he returned to his paperwork, seeing as so many people visit him because of that reason.

"He didn't pull any prank Sandaime-sama. I just think he's hiding something," the Hatake says. "I've read his file in the Academy. He's supposed to be the dead last in his class, yet yesterday he showcased smarts and skills well past his age," he reported.

"Look underneath the underneath, Kakashi. Aren't you the one who says that?" the wise Hokage questioned with a slight smirk as he continued on with his paperwork. That gave Kakashi the indication that the Sandaime knew about what Naruto had been hiding his abilities.

"Now you must be going. All your students are already there and I think being three hours late is more than enough," the Sandaime said with a smile.

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

The jonin walked out of the office and proceed to the training ground. As he walked he couldn't help but think of the teamwork displayed by Naruto and Akira the day before. This is team had potential and he fully intends to make the best that they can possibly be. What makes this team so special that he actually wants to train them? He didn't know quite yet.

* * *

As he arrived in the training ground, he was greeted with a loud scream from Sakura, an annoyed glare from Sasuke and small grins from Akira and Naruto. The two latter genin didn't mind getting some relaxing time while waiting. Well, as close as they can get to relaxing with Sakura's consistent fangirling and Sasuke's snobbishness.

"Okay, let's get training started. I'm going to teach you how to climb trees," Kakashi stated.

"But we already know how to do that," Sakura interrupted. She couldn't belive that he was going to teach them something so simple, but she held all she wanted to say not wanting to anger the jonin.

"Let me finish. I'm going to teach you how to climb trees without hands. Let me show you," The jonin then proceed to walk up the tree with ease. He started their trainning early, if he didn't teach them this skill early it would just be an embarrassment to the whole team especially Kakashi since his name would be on the line as their sensei

"You have the whole day to do this. Use these kunai to mark your progress," he said as he tossed a kunai to each genin which they caught with ease.

Sasuke took off immediately and made it about a meter off the ground before falling. He smirked at the rest of his teammates. Sakura walked up as well but she started to sweat so she sat on one of the branches. She smirked down at them as well.

Akira rolled her eyes at their display and began to walk up the tree with ease. Naruto walked up his tree as well. The two were even talking to one another as they went up the length of their respective trees. Sasuke was annoyed because the "idiots" were able to get up and he wasn't. In his mind none of them were supposed to be greater than him because they weren't Uchiha. He ran up the tree once more only to get the same result.

"Sensei, was that good enough?" Sakura asked, breathing heavily as she sat on one of the branches. It took so much chakra out of her.

"I must say, you have pretty good chakra control for a genin but you don't have enough chakra and stamina. I want you continue going up and down that tree until you really can't do it anymore. We have to get your reserves up, " Sakura frowned because she would be sweating heavily in front of her crush but begrudgingly followed anyways.

Sasuke was still going at it with vigour. 'I'll give him some time, if he doesn't figure it out in an hour then I'll teach him. I can't afford to baby him just because he is the last Uchiha.'

"Naruto, Akira, please come down," In an instant two blurs came down from the top of the tree. An orange one followed by a black one. They both landed soundlessly on the ground in front of Kakashi.

"You two have experience with this. Can you both do water walking as well?" He confirmed with the two young genin before him as he gestured them to hand back the kunai. 'At least these two aren't much of a bother but now I have to look for more shit for them to do. Looks like all of them will be interrupting my reading time. '

"Hai, Kakashi-sensei," They responded in unison. Kakashi liked the seriousness that these two possessed. He just wondered how he could get the other two genin as motived, especially Sakura. The only thing that could get that girl motivated is the Uchiha, who wanted nothing to do with her.

"How are your chakra reserves?" He asked Akira, not bothering to ask Naruto because he knew that he more chakra than he would need due to the Kyuubi.

"They are more than enough," Akira replied with a knowing smile.

"Okay then, the two of you work on your taijutsu with these clones," he said as he created three kagebunshin, it was slightly taxing having had to put more chakra with them so that they would be stable enough for taijutsu. Two for Naruto and one for Akira. He noticed that in the test the day before, she would always be using weapons, she didn't seem to do any type of taijutsu. Naruto on the other hand was very capable with his taijutsu, albeit it was almost like brawling he needed to focus more on defending.

"Akira, before you do that. I have a few questions for you," She nodded and they walked further away from the rest of the team.

"What do you need to know sensei?" She asked as she leaned against a tree.

"About your Kekkei Genkai, what does it do exactly? If you don't mind me asking, so that I know what trainning can help you use it better, "

"All members of the Kojin clan inherit the Kekkei Genkai, but we never named it. We have a strong affinity to all chakra. Our bodies end up creating too much and it is very potent making it easier for us to manipulate them in to shapes. We store them through the triangle seals we have tattooed into our bodies. One on the wrist and another on the neck for me. The more we store the more the tattoo spirals around, the whiter the hair. Some of us also have the ability to take away chakra from others by just touching them."

"It's been awhile since I've seen this in action. The last time was an ANBU that worked closely with the Yondaime. Was Owl your relative?" the Hatake asked, curiously. The ANBU he had served with under the Yondaime had the same hair as the young kunoichi before him did.

"Hai, he was my father," Akira replied with a sad smile.

"My condolences," Kakashi immedialty said, regretting bringing up the topic. He remembered that Owl died in the war. He was protecting Kushina. 'I never did find out his name,' he remembered. "Can you take away chakra as well?" he asked effectively changing the topic, remembering the skill of his comrade. Akira pushed her self off the tree and stepped closer to the older jonin. She simply poked him with her finger. He felt her take away a part of his chakra. A small ball of chakra was on the tip of her finger it slowly turned white, she put it against the empty triangle on her wrist, making the tattoo wrap around her wrist.

"Interesting. You can go practice your taijutsu now," he dismissed as he went back to check on everyone's progress but not before taking out his copy of Icha-Icha Paradise.

"But I'm not good with taijutsu," she muttered under her breath following him back to the rest of the team.


	7. Chapter 7

The genin were training seriously, at least most of them were. An hour has passed and Sasuke was not making fast progress, always adding too much chakra which Kakashi pointed out to him. After a few more falls, Sasuke was able to walk up with ease. Kakashi moved him to water walking, deeming that he was ready.

Sakura on the other hand was resting because she insisted that she couldn't make it any further. The jonin did not want to push her the point of chakra depletion.

Naruto was still going at it with the clones, his punches and kicks still being blocked but he was getting more and more creative on finding ways to land a hit. His defence was slowly getting better as well, seeing as he was getting hit less than when he started. Akira on the other hand wasn't faring as well as Naruto was against the clone, but she was able to block the hits being thrown at her. Her attack needed some work.

'These kids are giving it their all, but Sakura isn't fairing as well as the others. She needs to understand what being a kunoichi really means and I know just know the people who can help her with that,' Kakashi thought to himself as he pretended to be absorbed in his book. 'But it is too early for that. She won't listen yet.'

Before they knew it was already nearing sunset. "Okay, that's enough. I have something for you guys."

All the genin immediately assembled in front of Kakashi. "Starting today, all of you will be following this training regimen," he said handing them each a piece of paper, which had come up with the night before. "I expect all of you to follow this everyday. I'm also going to give you these," he continued as he handed them four thin black bands each.

"What are these, Sensei?" Akira asked curious about the bands that now lay in her hands along with the paper that was handed to her.

"Yeah, they are so ugly and unfashionable." Sakura added, agreeing with her teammate for the first time.

"Those are bands which I have gravity seals on. You wear one on each wrist and ankle. I will then activate the seals making them heavier. Basically, they will do what weights do but without all the bulk. I will also increase the weight when I think you are ready," the Hatake said all in one breath. He thanked Gai for giving him the idea of giving them weights.

'This is a better option versus getting actual weights. Cheaper too,' Naruto thought to himself inwardly thanking his sensei.

"That's it for today. Meet all of you here tomorrow, same time." With that the jonin shunshined away leaving leaves in his place.

"Would you like to get something to eat Naruto?" Akira asked her blond teammate.

"I would love to. Ramen?" He replied as they walked away leaving their other two teammates. His female teammate agreed with a nod. "That was tough training. I'm not too good with taijutsu," the Kojin confessed.

"I'm not too good with weapons. Maybe we could help each other?" The blonde suggested to his fellow teammate.

"That would be extremely helpful. Thank you," she said grateful from his suggestion. They continued their light conversation until they reached the ramen shop. As they entered they were greeted with the cheerful smile of Teuchi and Ayame. Their orders were taken and the old cook set out to cooking.

"Different girl again? Naruto you're such a player!" Ayame teased.

The Kojiin smirked at this and said, "Who was he out with? Let me guess. A certain Hyuuga heiress?"

Ayame and Akira began having a in-depth discussion on what the blonde did the day before. Naruto on the other hand rolled his eyes and began talking to the older chef. "So when are you meeting her again?" Ayame asked, catching everybody's attention.

"I don't know actually. I just said that I would see her tomorrow so I hope that she would come here," he confessed, blushing just at the thought of her. He was nervous too. The heiress was too cute to handle.

This made the two girls look at each other and they began to lecture Naruto on how to properly talk to girls. "You don't just leave them guessing, they might take that as a sign that you are just being nice and forcing yourself to talk to them!"

"I think she's outside," Akira said interrupting her joint lecture with Ayame. Naruto immediately got off his seat, grateful to leave the conversation and headed outside. He saw Hinata almost instantly, "Won't you come join us, Hinata-chan?"

The said girl blushed at that fact that she was found out by her crush but nodded anyways. He always seemed to never notice her before, but now she was alleys being found out. Naruto parted the curtain for her and she entered blushing once again. "What would you like Hyuuga-san?" Ayame asked as the Hyuuga took a seat on the otherside of Naruto. The heiress answered softly and they began cooking.

"I don't think we have met yet Hyuuga-san. Nice to meet you I'm Naruto's teammate, Kojin Akira," the said girl said as her order was put down in front of her.

"N-nice to m-meet you Kojin-san. I'm Hyuuga Hinata," the blue haired answered nervously albeit two kunoichi hit it off and were very comfortable with each other in a matter of minutes. Hinata had stopped stuttering and was holding the conversation with the group. Naruto was smiling the whole time at the fact that Hinata wasn't shy around him anymore.

"I hate to leave now but I have to get home to my brother," Akira said as she put down money to cover her meal and thanked the chef and his daughter. "I'll see you soon, Hinata-san. See you at training Naruto."

Akira was leisurely walking home when she heard someone call her name. She turned and found that it was the Nara she met yesterday. He just came out of the Yakiniku restaurant with the rest of Team 10. His teammates looked at him like he had a death wish, remembering the encounter with Sakura. Asuma just looked at the girl curiously, as far as he knew the Nara never initiated conversations with anyone.

"What are you doing here?" Shikamaru asked lazily, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He didn't even know why he just called her out. Weren't girls supposed to be troublesome?

She greeted his team politely and then replied saying, " I'm walking home from the ramen stand. Why?"

Shikamaru turned to his team and bid goodbye and the team walked towards the young Kojin. Team 10 stood there dumfounded. "I'll bring you home."

"You don't need to. I'll be fine," she told him, feeling bad that he was leaving his team because of her. She would be fine by herself she thought to herself, she was used to it. He sighed at her stubbornness, "I insist, my mom would kill me if she found that I let a girl go home on her own and that would be very troublesome."

Akira had no choice but to agree and they walked together. There was a comfortable silence between them as they headed in the direction of the kunoichi's house. 'Why am I doing something this troublesome for this girl? I literally just met her. What a drag,' he thought to himself. He was going out of his way to do something troublesome for a girl he just met. This was not normal for the young Nara. Before he knew it they reached an apartment complex.

She turned to him and said, " Thank you for accompanying me, Shikamaru. Good night."

"Oh and maybe you should tell your teammates to come out of the shadows," she said turning to him with a small smirk and a wink as she disappeared up the stairs of the building.

"How did she know that we were her? It's all because of you Choji!" Ino exclaimed, getting mad at the Akimichi boy who was still munching on his chips. Shikamaru had a small smile on his face as they all walked home.

* * *

After Akira left, Naruto and Hinata stayed for a bit more until Hinata was finished with her food then they left. Naruto insisted on bringing the girl home and he did like the day before.

"I really like hanging out with you Hinata-chan." The blonde stated as they walked. The leaves were rustling, their surrounding was peaceful and calm. This was a different setting compared to the loud bustling street in the morning.

In the morning they would certainly get stares from the civilians. The shinobi among them would even go as far as to asking if the blonde jinchuriki was disturbing the young heiress. The young

blonde liked the fact that they could just be in each others company without complications at night.

"I like hanging out with you too Naruto-kun," she said back softly. She still couldn't believe that she was talking to the person she had been crushing on since the academy. Their relationship changed in an instant, from admiring from a far to actual talking and seeming dates.

"Do you want to hang out on Saturday?" Naruto asks her. "I know that's like at the end of the week but I think we are going to start being busy with our teams and missions. Don't you think?" he rambles.

"I would love that," she said all too quickly before blushing.

'She is too cute for her own good,' The fact that she immediately answered made the blonde smile.

"That's settled then, good night Hinata-chan. I'll pick you up on Saturday at 10. Sweet dreams," quickly giving her a hug before disappearing via shunshin.


	8. Chapter 8

During the span of the week all the members began following the regimen. It took a few days for them to settle into waking up early for their morning practice but they finally were finally able to move with the gravity seals albeit a bit slower than they used to. Their bodies always hurt at the end of the day and they were always dead tired, but it would all be worth it. They also did their first mission as a team during the week, resulting in a few scratches on faces of Sasuke and Naruto. The two boys could never look at cats the same ever again. They shook at the mere thought.

They continued on with their training throughout the week. They took D-ranked missions everyday after morning training, leaving them with evenings off. But really they were all just doing more training, all except Sakura that is. Friday came quickly and they took on another mission.

"I hope that we actually get a decent mission this time," Naruto said out loud to nobody in particular as they walked to the mission briefing room.

"We don't really have a choice we're just genin, but I hope it isn't looking for that damn cat again," Akira replied. Sakura and Sasuke didn't mind their fellow genin. Sakura tried to start a conversation with her beloved but was shot down with an icy glare.

'We need to fix the tension here. There are literally two halves of the team, Naruto and Akira are getting along with each other but not with Sasuke and Sakura. Sasuke is just ignoring Sakura who's following him around like a lost puppy. How the hell do I fix this?' the Hatake thought as he read his book.

* * *

They were able to do two missions that day. Sasuke and Naruto were sent to help with some manual labor on a farm while the two girls were assigned to babysit for a civilian family. Kakashi sent a clone with the girls while he went with the boys. The tension between the two sides was nothing short of irritating. Naruto and Sasuke would turn everything into a competition and up fighting causing more damage. Akira and Sakura on the other hand would be talking at all and om the rare times that they did, Sakura would never be so lucky.

The boys' mission went relatively well seeing as they were able to complete their task of moving over a hundred sacks of rice in record time but they had to stay later and do more labor as compensation for the damage they caused to the farm when they decided to have a brawl. The girls' went relatively well since they had no physical fighting, but more than a few insults and threats were thrown at each other. Both pairs brought out the worst in each other.

The Team 7 genin needed to blow off steam, so as soon as they gave their respective mission reports they all headed to their separate ways.

The young Uchiha was working on his shurikenjutsu. He was deep in the forest, surrounded by numerous targets. It was the same practice that he saw Itachi do when he was younger. Though Sasuke despised the man and wanted nothing more than to kill him, this was the most effective way to practice. He closed his and jumped, he hit the targets at the centre even the one behind the rock but he did not hit the one on the tree on his left. It was a centimetre below the target.

He screamed in irritation, but he was not going to give up now, after all he had a man to kill. He also had something to prove not only to himself but to a certain blonde as well.

* * *

Naruto was in his training ground deep in the forrest. He created two hundred clones, they all separated into 5 groups as they usually did but now there were more of them in each. The young blonde created ten more clones and they just began fighting. He needed to let off some steam and this was the only way how without hurting anyone.

Despite his logical thinking and maturity, the Uzumaki still cussed like a sailor and had a temper and Sasuke was the best at getting him irritated. They were rivals after all, though neither would ever acknowledge it. They pushed each other to be better, to train harder.

The blonde had something to prove. He wanted to be better. He would be Hokage and he will prove the villagers wrong. He is not the demon. Kurama isn't evil either. If only everyone took the time to understand each other, instead of making assumptions or believing what would be easier for them to understand.

He continued to he started to feel the exhaustion. In groups of ten he dispelled his clones until he was the last one in the field. He lay down on the grass to process everything until he felt the need to go home and get some sleep. But of course his night had only begun the minute he lay down on his bed and closed his eyes. He had a lot more training to do.

'Your taijutsu got bettter, but it's still shit. Stop being so text book about the form they taught you in that stupid Academy, make your own,' Kurama said the moment the boy entered his room.

* * *

Kojin Akira was sitting on top of the Hokage Monument. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She focused on the village below her, trying to sense and differentiate the chakra signatures below her. She could vaguely feel the different signatures of the ninjas that were in the crowd below. Focusing even harder she let her mind be open to all the chakra around her. She saw a world of gray but the hazy blue showed her the presences of chakra in people.

She could feel the chakra of those in the Hokage Tower. She felt the Hokage in his office together with two ANBU. Or was it three? Their signatures were concealed too well for her find out. She felt the faint chakra signature from the secretary who was a civilian guessing from the weak pulsing of her chakra. She had never gone this far in her trainning before.

It ceased to amaze the young Kojin how much possibilities there was in the world if she kept her mind open. This calmed her down and she continued this kind of practice until she could no longer stand the headache and headed home.

* * *

Haruno Sakura has always been smart, but she has always been insecure as well. She found that studying was something she was good at and that would be enough for her career as a ninja. It was during her genin test when she got proved wrong. All her team members were able to put up a fight, except her that is.

Sakura willingly did self training that later afternoon, which surprised even herself. She worked on her chakra reserves as Kakashi suggested. She ran up and down the tall tree she found until she could no longer breathe. She sat on one of the high branches and let her mind wander. The stars had already come out and she looked at them as if they had the answers to all her problems, to all her insecurities.

'Sasuke-kun will still fall in love with me for my brains right? But the way he looks at me is as if I am only a hindrance to him. I don't know what to do anymore. Naruto, I don't even know who he is anymore. He's not the same person from the Academy. Maybe that Naruto never existed in the first place. Akira is a much more capable kunoichi than I will ever be. Kakashi-sensei doesn't know what to do with me. I'm dragging the whole team down.'

The young Haruno head down the tree and made her way back home. She had a lot to think about.

* * *

Naruto was awoken by the ringing of his alarm clock. He looked over and groaned, it was already five in the morning on a Saturday. It was time for trainning seeing as he had no time for it later in the day because of his date. His put on a plain white shirt and his bright-ass orange pants. He took an apple off the table and drank a glass of milk before beginning his morning training. The training was hell to say the least, he had to do 50 laps around the village for warm up. How the hell was the reasonable? But deep inside he knew it was necessary.

The trainning tired him out, and that was really saying something given his stamina. The young blonde was drenched in sweat when came back to his apartment at 8. He immediately took a shower. He changed into another white shirt and his only decent pair of black shinobi pants that he kept at the back of his closet.

After he had dressed, he had more breakfast which consisted of a bowl of oatmeal, two bananas, two more glasses of milk and another apple. A growing boy needs his food and milk he reasoned to himself. He was also informed by Kakashi that if he ate ramen all the time he wouldn't grow properly which the blonde genius failed to take in to consideration.

'I do not want that to happen. I'm already short as fuck, if I don't grow properly I'll be left behind by everyone else and nobody will take me as seriously as I would want them to. I would always have to use fear and there is no way in hell I would resort to that…"

Our blonde jinchuuriki was obviously overthinking. It was all because of the little date he had with Hinata later. He couldn't keep still and began pacing on his floor.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

A bang then broke his trance-like state. It came from below, it was the young blonde's neighbour who he had never ever seen. Heck, he was the only one who lived the top floor because no one wanted to live in the same floor as the Kyuubi brat. It was odd enough when he found out that someone moved in below him two years ago.

'Might as well read a scroll to kill some time before I head over to Hinata's,'

He picked up a scroll regarding different Futon jutsu that had been meaning to learn. His ninjutsu was limited seeing as he wanted to make sure had good chakra control before learning any jutsu.

* * *

On the other side of town, Akira just returned from her morning training as well. Hers was slightly less intense since Kakashi took into consideration her difference in stamina. Though hers was focused on chakra exercises which really tired her out to the point that her was purely black now.

"Morning Akira," Hikari greeted as Akira entered the kitchen.

"Morning Onii-san. When did you get back?" She replied as she took a piece of toast off her brother's plate. He gave her a pointed glare but continued on eating.

"While you were out, are you up for some training later at 4? You can't slack off just because you are doing D ranked missions. You need more chakra in you by the way," he said with a mouthful of food. His younger sister rolled her eyes at his manners, or in this case lack thereof.

"Hai, I'll get more later. Where do I meet you?" she asked while getting the carton of milk out of the fridge. She poured him out a glass and handed it to him. This was her way of telling her brother that he was short, which he actually wasn't.

"Meet me here. We'll be using one of the ANBU training grounds. I got permission from the head," he said as he finished off his breakfast and the glass of milk before retreating back into his room to sleep off his mission.

"You're such a pain in the ass," the girl grumbled noticing the pile of dishes she now had to do. She drank two glasses of milk before washing the dishes that her brother had pilled up. After washing the dishes and a quick shower she head out to the hill she found earlier in the week. She was not surprised to find a certain pineapple-haired boy already laying there.

"Morning Shikamaru," she greeted as she walked passed him. She settled under the near by tree and brought out a book.

"Morning Akira," he mumbled back as he kept his on the clouds above.

* * *

Naruto looked to his side table to see that it was already 9:30. He put his scroll down and made his way to his bathroom to freshen up. "This is as good as it's going to get. Note to self, get new ninja clothes."

The young Uzumaki opted not to take the road that day, not wanting anything to get him down on what he would call a beautiful day, so he was jumping from roof to roof. The Hyuuga compound was in the richer part of town which was very far away from where he lived, seeing as he lived near the red light district.

'I hope I don't screw anything up today. I've been waiting for today since the day I noticed her."

* * *

_Two years ago, _

_Naruto was outside the classroom waiting in the hall because the teacher in charge, who was not Iruka at that time, had kicked him out of the class for being noisy when in reality the young boy had just coughed. _

_It was already lunch time and he was being made to sit there until the end of the day. He was told not to leave the spot not even for the bathroom. As the children went out of the room he was being 'accidentally' stepped on by most of them. Some just blatantly kicked him, the rest of the teachers turned a blind eye to this behaviour and went into the faculty room. _

_It was a shit day for the blonde to begin with, he was already robbed of most of the monthly allowance given to him by the Hokage, the front door to his apartment was defaced again and not to mention he had left the little to nothing food at home._

_He remained seated at his spot outside the door and just looked down. He had given up for today. There was nothing he could do so he did exactly that, nothing. The young boy stared down at the wooden floors, his stomach aching. _

_It was then he heard light footsteps slowly approaching him. He shut his eyes and braced himself for the abuse that was about to come b't it never came. He looked up and saw one of the girls in his class. Her face was red for some reason and she was painfully shy as she looked at him. _

_She took a cookie and a small carton of milk out of her pocket and handed it to him. "W-would y-you like some Naruto-san? I-i c-can't eat a-anymore, I-im t-too full."_

_He looked at the girl before him, she had short dark blue hair and odd enough white eyes. "Hai, if it's not too much of a problem. Thank you very much," _

_"I-i also got s-some i-ice for you. I-i saw w-what t-the other kids w-were doing a-awhile ago. It l-looks l-like it needs i-ice," she said as she placed a small ice bag on his legs and another by his stomach._

_"Arigato Hyuuga-san," He replied remembering that the white eyes was a common characteristic among the Hyuuga clan, though he couldn't fully remember her name. _

_"A-ano please j-just c-call me Hinata," she said to him in a small voice turning even more red than she already was, which he thought was impossible. _

_The warning bell rang and she bid a goodbye as she rushed into the classroom. He quickly hid all the items he was given behind his back and waited for all the teachers and kids to enter the classrooms. _


	9. Chapter 9

Naruto was snapped out of his reminiscing when he realised that he was 5 minutes away from the Hyuuga residence. He jumped down from the roof of the building and descended onto the road. He received odd glances from the branch family of the Hyuuga who were doing the errands. When he reached the entrance of the manor, he was stopped by the Hyuuga on guard.

"State your business," the Hyuuga asked with _that _look in his eye. Naruto hated that look. It was the look people gave him growing up. The look of disgust. Hate. Revulsion. He almost attacked right there, but he held himself back. Today was not the day to be picking fights.

"Good morning, Hyuuga-san. I'm here to see Hinata-san," he said in the calmest and most polite he could muster despite his desire to kill the man.

"She is busy today. Maybe another day," the guard rudely replied. He couldn't have the heiress near this _thing. _It was then Hyuuga Ko, the former caretaker of Hinata, happened to pass by overhearing the conversation.

"Uzumaki-san, Hinata-sama asked me to inform you that she is on her way. She's just having a few problems because couldn't find her jacket this morning. Would you like to wait for her inside?" Ko said, waiting for the young blond's answer. He had no reason to hate the boy. He only advised Hinata to stay away from him when he was younger to avoid the heiress from being bullied.

"It is alright Hyuuga-san. I wouldn't want to intrude, I will wait out here. I hope you have a good day today," Naruto said refusing the offer politely with a smile, not wanting to bother the somewhat friendly Hyuuga. He most definitely preferred this Hyuuga over the other Hyuuga guard though.

"Same goes to you," Ko said with a polite nod before going back to his business. With that the guard who was currently staring holes into the blondes head was forgotten and ignored, Naruto leaned against the entrance. After a few minutes, Hinata came rushing down the walk way that led to the house. She was wearing her normal ninja pants but instead of her usual jacket she was wearing a cream coloured sweater.

"I'm s-sorry for being late Naruto-kun. I couldn't find my jacket this morning," Hinata apologised with a blush.

"So I've heard, it's perfectly alright. I came here too early anyways, " he said with a small laugh as they began to walk away into town. The two of them enjoying each others company, talking about nothing and everything.

It was if they were in their own world.

* * *

On the other side of town, Shikamaru looked over at Akira. He was trying to figure her out. She sat with her back against the tree bark with her face hidden behind a psychology book. He was getting bored of the silence, which is a very odd thing for him. He couldn't learn anything about the intriguing genin if they were sitting in silence.

"So, you're interested in psychology?" Shikamaru asked the girl, sitting up from his previous position and faced her.

"Yeah, it's interesting that there is an explanation as to why we feel the way we do. That there are these little habits that we do on instinct when feel an emotion. I guess I just like knowing that there is an explanation for my emotions," Akira replied instantly.

"Sorry. I'm rambling about things again," she continued with a small blush.

'I can't believe I just said all that and all that to someone I barely know,' Akira cursed inwardly. It was if she instinctively knew that she could trust him.

"That's actually really interesting when you put it like that. We all have our own hobbies. Yours just happens to be reading into psychology books and mine shogi," he replied with a small smile.

"Can I take a guess as to why you like shogi? If you don't mind. I want to see if any of the reading I've been doing can be put to use," she asked politely as she closed the book and placed on her lap.

"Sure, go ahead. But if you don't get it right you're getting me mochi from the shop down by the foot of the hill," he replied, feeling particularly playful and talkative today. Which was an oddity in itself to the young genius.

"And what if I do get it right?" Akira returned with a competitive smirk as she sat up straighter against the tree.

"Then I'll get you mochi. Deal?" The young Nara offered with a glint in his eye. There was really something about this girl that brought a different side in him.

"You like it because it makes you think. You are naturally an over thinker, so you like how you can make your opponent unconsciously follow the plan that you have come up. You think more than twenty steps ahead planning not only your moves but your opponents as well. It makes you ready for whats to come with your life as a ninja. You not only have to adapt to the situation but you have to control it. You like being in control because then there will be no uncertainty. Uncertainty means that there is a flaw in your plan and I'm guessing you don like be wrong because if you are wrong in something like this then that means when you are out on the field, it can cost the lives of you comrades, " Akira said all in one breath.

To say that Shikamaru was shocked was an understatement. This girl explained his very own thoughts to him and she barely knew him. He was impressed and that was rare. With a small smile on his face he stood up from his previous position and headed down the hill to get the troublesome girl her mochi.

"I like red-bean mochi by the way!" She shouted to him. He looked back and smiled then continued down the hill.

'She's troublesome, but I like it.'

'He's interesting.I like interesting.'

* * *

Naruto and Hinata just entered the mochi shop to see Shikamaru seated at one of the tables waiting for his order at one of the tables. Shikamaru immediately saw the couple and gave them a nod and a lazy sat down across him and Hinata next to him. Both giving polite greetings to the young Nara.

"What you doing here Shikamaru?" Naruto politely asked, making conversation with his fellow genin.

"I'm just buying mochi because I lost a bet to someone," He replied smiling to himself, remembering what just happened a few minuets ago. The young couple was surprised at the fact that he was smiling the way he was.

"Is it with Akira-san?" Hinata asked, surprising everyone at the table. It was just a guess but from the reactions she got she knew she hit the jackpot.

"H-how did you know?" The young Nara asked blushing a bright red. 'Crap. Am I that obvious already?'

"Akira?!" Naruto asked at the same time, genuinely surprised by this discovery.

"Call it girls intuition," The Hyuuga replied with a small smirk that neither of the boys have seen on her. In fact her own boldness surprised the Hyuuga. She had a strong feeling that suited each other the first time she met Akira.

"I'll call her over then," Naruto said as he pulsed his chakra which went unnoticed by the two genin. 'Shikamaru better take care of her. I've only known her for a few weeks but I've grown protective over her. Even though I know she can protect herself, she's become one of my precious people.'

After precisely twenty seconds, Akira appeared at the door with her book in her hands. "You called?" She said as she headed for the table the three genin were at, confused as why she was called by the blonde. She felt his chakra and Hinata's a few minutes after Shikamaru left, seeing as she only had a five kilometre radius that she could sense. She felt his chakra pulse in the way that they had discussed when talking about signals.

"How did you come over her without him actually calling you?" Shikamaru asked Akira who was now seated next to him. Hinata was wondering exactly the same thing.

Naruto and Akira simply looked at each other then began smiling."Secret," they said in unison with a brief laugh. Shikamaru tried to see if they have any comms on, and they didn't have any. 'Team 7 is something to watch out for.' He also noticed the change in personality of the blonde genin.

At that exact moment the waitress came with Shikamaru's order of a dozen red-bean mochi. He slid the box to Akira, "Here are your winnings."

She smiled and offered them all to get some putting the box at the centre of the table, which they all complied to by getting a piece. In Naruto's case three pieces. After all the jokes were said and the box emptied, Naruto and Hinata left to continue with their date leaving Shikamaru and Akira alone once again. It was already 12 noon.

"I've got to get going. I still have training with my brother," Akira said once again breaking the silence as they both walked out of the mochi shop. She had already rested and regained chakra

"I have to get home as well. My mom will start nagging otherwise. See you around, " he said, walking to the direction of the Nara compound. As the pineapple-headed genuine did trainning that day, a part of his mind was still on a girl with black hair and deep brown eyes.


	10. Chapter 10

"You're home early. With a boy?" Hikari asked the moment he saw his little sister walk through the door. She had a small smile on her face which was a contrast from her usual blank face.

"Yeah," she replied as she leaned against the door frame, waiting for her brother to make a move to get up.

"Who was it then?" he asked as finally stood up and put down his book on the table. He picked up his and Akira's equipment bag from the closet.

"A Nara," she replied keeping her face neutral but failing, her cheeks heating up. "But training is my priority, the exams are coming up soon and I do not want to fail or let anyone get hurt."

"Then we better get going. You better have a shit load of chakra on reserve. I don't want to have to give you some of mine again just so you can wake up," Hikari said as he locked the door to their apartment.

Akira simply rolled her eyes and gestured to her hair which was already half white. "You know that's not enough for training, right?" Hikari chided her, who pointed at his already white hair and tattoo that was spiralling around his neck and arm.

"Fine, I'll get some while we walk. You're so demanding."

"You should really stop stealing chakra from crowds. That's not very nice of you," Hikari stated as they made their way through the streets filled with shops. The siblings manoeuvred through the noon crowd, leaving feather light touches on the random shinobi in the crowd that couldn't feel a single thing.

"As if you aren't doing it right now," Akira rolled her eyes at her older brother. They didn't get enough chakra to the point the ninja would feel the lose, but with the amount of people they were getting from they were able to gather a lot.

"Fair enough. By the way we are going to be joined by a few friends of mine,"

* * *

The whole afternoon, Naruto led Hinata to different sites in Konoha. They went to the little shops and stands that people tend to forget. So by the end of the afternoon their stomachs were filled to the brim. They sat on top of the Hokage monument with Hinata's head on his shoulder and Naruto's arm around her. They watched the bustling village below them.

They sat in silence, watching the sunset painting the sky different shades of orange and purple. It was breathtaking.

"We're both going to be really busy and not see each other for the next month, aren't we?" Naruto said breaking the silence as he turned to face her.

"We have no choice Naruto-kun. It's our job as shinobi," the Hyuuga heiress smiled sadly back at him. "We'll see each other on the weekends. I-If you're okay with it."

"I would love to Hinata-chan," Their lips collided. It was even more breathtaking than the view. The kiss was innocent and only lasted a couple of seconds, the way every first kiss is meant to be like. The rest of the night was a blur as he walked her home and left her with a kiss the forehead.

Hinata was changing. She slowly stopped stuttering around the people close to her. She trained way harder than she used, leaving her to the point of exhaustion every night. She started smiling more and people were beginning to take notice of the sudden change in her.

* * *

Team 7 was slowly getting better. There wasn't much argument as there used to be on missions and during trainning. Outside of training was a different matter but at least they started bonding the way a team should despite all the fighting.

Sasuke wasn't as cold as he used to be with his teammates, going as far to respond to their morning greetings. Sakura had begun to take trainnning more seriously and had stopped complaining. But she still starved herself to retain her figure, which was clearly hindering her progress. Akira's threats and cussing had toned down to the point that she could hold conversations with her female teammate.

Naruto on the other hand, finally let his personality out in the open for everyone. The boy had also finally got rid of his bright-ass orange jumpsuit. He now sported a long-sleeved mesh undershirt which he topped with a white shirt that bore his signature spiral at the back and he now wore plain black shinobi pants that had a lot more pockets. He carried along with him the standard kunai holster on his left thigh and shurkien pouch. He had also began wrapping his knuckles with ninja tape and kept his headband around his forehead but traded the blue cloth for a black one.

They weren't the perfect team, but they knew the appropriate time when to be bickering and when to be serious. They were slowly grasping what it meant to be ninja.

"I will see what mission I have for you. Please wait a moment," said Iruka who was assisting the Hokage in distributing missions since school was out for a few months. He had already recovered from the incident with Mizuki which was over 2 months ago. He handed the scroll to the Hokage.

"Aha, D-ranked mission. Wait, Iruka-kun can you hand me the new C-rank? That is if you think your team is ready Kakashi-kun."

"Hai, I believe that they are more than ready Hokage-sama," countered the jonin with full confidence. His team had already come so far, and he trained so that can never be caught unprepared. Team Minato was caught unprepared and they lost two comrades that day. He will not let these kids go through the same thing. 'Even if it means giving up my life to save all of them.'

Iruka was genuinely worried for his former students. He didn't think that they were ready to handle a C-rank just yet. But he had no say in this, he just prayed to Kami that they would come back alive.

"Alright, I have just the mission. Iruka please bring in Tazuna-san."

"As you wish Hokage-sama," Iruka returned a few moments later with the bridge builder Tazuna. The Hokage continued on with the mission briefing. As he did Tazuna was judging the shinobi that were supposed to be his protectors.

"With all due respect Hokage-sama, these kids are supposed to be protecting me? They look like they can barely put up a fight. Do they even have field experience? Tazuna said as the Hokage had finished the briefing.

"Tazuna-san, I would be careful about what you say- " Kakashi was cut off by the killing intent that started to fill the small room. It was coming from Akira who was on the verge of fighting with the old man, not caring who the hell he was. The killing intent was getting thicker and thicker as each moment passed. She hated people who judged others unfairly.

"Akira, calm down," Naruto said in a quiet yet commanding voice as he put his hand on her shoulder. This surprised the occupants in the room because none of them had heard him talk like that before. The killing intent died down and Akira remained glaring at the old bridge builder. The bridge builder was left shaking due to the amount of bloodlust in the room mere seconds ago as well as the deathly glares the four genin were giving him. The ANBU hidden in the room made themselves present upon feeling the bloodlust. The Hokage waved them off before the rest of the occupants noticed their arrival.

"Tazuna-san, we will see you at the East Gate at 5 a.m." Kakashi said not minding his genin who were still glaring at the old man. "You brats, pack for the mission. Nothing too heavy. Come on time," he said directed to his genin who finally stopped glaring at the old man.

"Hai Kakashi-sensei," they said in unison. Iruka raised an eyebrow at how put together this team was considering their initial attitude when they were newly assigned.

"Akira and Kakashi, please stay for awhile. We have matters we need to discuss," The Hokage said dismissing the rest of Team 7 and Tazuna. Before leaving Naruto gave her a concerned look, but she waved it of with a small smile.

* * *

"I feel like the world is ending. Kakashi-sensei is only 15 minutes late," Sakura said as they saw Kakashi approaching the rest of Team 7. The rest of the team hummed in agreement. The tardy jonin received various greetings from the team, he gave a small smile underneath his mask. This was one of the few moments that the team got along.

'So this is what Minato-sensei felt when weren't being annoying shits, huh?'

They left Konoha and began their journey to the Land of the Waves. Since they had a civilian with them they had to settle with walking. Though they were all on guard, they travelled in a square formation with Tazuna in the centre, Sakura and Akira in the front, Naruto and Sasuke at the rear while was Kakashi trailing after them from behind.

They took breaks every once in awhile to give the bridge builder some time to recuperate. They occasionally spoke as they journeyed but otherwise it was relatively silent. Team 7 was on a mission so they put aside their differences with each other for the time being. But with one comment it could ruin the peace so they all kept their mouths' shut.

"It's so damn hot. I wish it would rain,"Akira complained out loud to nobody in particular. This was odd coming from the young Kojin since she preferred to keep silent when on missions. Sakura gave her an odd look, it was unusual that she would start conversations. Sasuke and Naruto on the other hand understood what she was talking about loud and clear. They noticed that there was a puddle on the ground ahead of them but it hasn't even rained the whole week. Kakashi acted as if he hadn't heard her comment, completely immersed in his book.

"Do you want some water to drink Akira?" Naruto replied playing along, "I think we can stop over some time soon. "

After passing the puddle there was as silent rustle to be heard and two men stepped out of the puddle. With two chains in hand the men stalked the masked jonin, in one quick dash they wrapped the chains around him and pulled, leaving his mutilated body on the floor.

Sakura screamed at the sight of their sensei's dead body on the ground. The two ninja then charged straight for Tazuna, planning to get rid of the genin afterwards. The genin were in defensive positions with their weapons drawn expect for the young Haruno who was still in the state of shock. Sasuke parried the strike of the shorter ninja while Naruto did the same to the taller one. As the boys kept the ninja busy, Akira stood guard infront of the bridge builder.

Naruto was carrying out blows to the taller ninja when he saw an opening in his opponent''s defence. He aimed a blow to the enemy's face, with his right hand which held his kunai. The ninja quickly went to block the blow only to be struck in the solar plexus, effectively knocking the wind out of him. The Uzumaki used that to his advantage and knocked out the ninja with a swift blow to the neck.

"**Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu**"

Sasuke's fireball was dodged by the ninja by using a substitute. The enemy ninja appeared before the young Uchiha, aiming right for the chest. Sasuke dodged the blow and brought a kick to the enemy's face. They kept exchanging blows neither having significant advantage. Suddenly the ninja slumped forward and landed on the ground, right in time because the next blow was to the Uchiha's eyes.

Behind him was Akira who had somehow traded places with Naruto, who was now guarding Tazuna. He gave a glare to the his teammate, but he was actual grateful for her sudden appearance. He couldn't risk losing his eyes, if he did he would no longer be able to awaken his Sharingan.

Akira went over to the other ninja who Naruto was battling and touched his head for awhile, effectively draining him of his chakra as she did with the one who was battling Sasuke. Her hair was now half white with the amount of chakra she absorbed from the ninjas. Kakashi then shunshined down to where his genin were, having watched over the battle from the tree above.

"Kakashi-sensei!"Sakura exclaimed upon the jonin's arrival. She looked to where his corpse supposedly lay, only to see pieces of wood in his place. He gave her a brief smile which made his eye turn into a U.

"Who were those people sensei?" the young Haruno questioned. This was supposed to be a simple escort mission, so why would people be attacking them?

"They were the Demon brothers, chunin-level missing-nin. They were mercenaries hired to kill Tazuna-san," stated Akira in reply as she handed Naruto and Sasuke some water.

"Tazuna-san, mind explaining why there were after you? And why we shouldn't leave you here for them to kill," the Hatake said with a serious look.

The bridge builder explained the situation of his town to the ninja. That Gato, a well known business man was out to kill him because the bridge Tazuna was building posed a threat to Gatō's control of Wave's economy. Gato's shipping company was just his front for his real business which was smuggling and drug-dealing. He took control of the Land of Waves just for this.

"Please help me save my town."


	11. Chapter 11

After a group discussion among Team 7, they decided to take up the mission. But they needed all the information they can get from the missing-nin first, who were still knocked out due to chakra loss.

"Akira, get all the information you can about their employer and their plans for the wave," Kakashi gestured to the ninja who they had just knocked out and tied to a tree. They had also been rid of all their weapons and. The Sandaime had finally given the jonin the file regarding Kojin Akira and it was not what he had expected. He had whispered something into her ear, which none of them had questioned.

"Hai Kakashi-sensei," The young Kojin preferred information gathering than fighting in the field. It was after all, all she did in her time outside the village.

The young Kojin retrieved some chakra within in her body. It came out as bright white orb from the back of her neck. She let the ball of chakra float in her hand before she split it with her other hand, producing a flames of blue chakra. She put in the flames back in their members of Team 7 and Tazuna watched her in awe as she made use of her Kekkei Genkai.

The Demon brothers woke up tied up to a tree with a girl seated formally before them. It was one of the pesky genin for the team that they had just failed to take down. Her face was void of any emotion as she held a syringe in her hand.

"Meizu, give me one reason that I shouldn't put this poison in you. Torturing is one of your favourite past times, so you should know that this can kill you the moment I inject it into your neck," she stated with a sadistic smile as she addressed the mercenary by his name.

"Fuck you. I wanna watch you do it, let's see if you have the guts-" in a quick movement, the girl had straddled him and stuck the syringe into his neck.

"Wrong answer Meizu," she said into his ear. The mercenary's body slumped and unmoving. Sasuke and Sakura just watched in horror as their fellow genin took a life. Tazuna looked at the girl as if she was the monster.

"So Gōzu," the young Kojin addressed as she sat comfortably on the dead ninja's lap, addressing his brother. "Do you have information for me or will you be meeting your brother down in hell?"

Over the next few minutes the mercenary began spilling everything he knew about Gato's operation along with the location of the hideout. They were also able to find out that the Demon brothers had been working for Momochi Zabuza, who was originally hired to get rid of the old bridge builder. But seeing as they failed then Zabuza would be coming after them himself along with his right hand man a masked ninja.

"Is that all?" Akira questioned as she remained in the dead mercenary's lap.

"H-hai, that's all they trusted us with. I swear to Kami that is all we were told," Gōzu replied his eye twitching.

"There is something else you are hiding from me. What is it?"

"I am not hiding anything, I swear-"

"Stop lying to me, Gōzu. Here, I thought you were being a good boy for me. I was going to reward you, " the young kunoichi breathlessly whispered into his ear. In a quick movement like the one before, Akira was now straddling the shinobi with the syringe pressing his neck almost breaking the skin beneath.

"Alright, alright. I'm sorry. Zabuza's attendant has a Kekkei Genkai, he can control Ice," the mercenary breathed as he felt the needle about to break the skin and as he felt his arousal rise.

"Thank you for the information, Gōzu " the young kunoichi whispered into his ear before pushing the syringe in to the man's neck.

The horrified stares she got from Tazuna, Sakura and Sasuke were expected. They had never seen an interrogation before. Naruto on the other hand noted that he was not the only one hiding their abilities.

"You just killed them without a second thought, you monster!" Sakura screamed. 'I already knew she was crazy and had a temper but I never knew she was capable of that.'

"They almost killed us. They put Tazuna-san's life in danger which we were entrusted to protect. If you think my actions are wrong then go home, there is no place for you here," Akira chuckled with ill humour as she stood from her previous position.

"They gave you the information we needed, you didn't have to kill them!" the young Haruno retorted.

"Listen Haruno, we are hired to keep people safe and away from harm. If we weren't to kill then who would? That is why we take lives, to do the dirty work for everyone's safety. We are soldiers, meant to fight and protect our village no matter what the cost is. What Akira just did is part of the job. You have no right to judge her," Naruto came to the defence of his teammate.

"Sakura, Sasuke, come here for a second," Kakashi said, stopping the impending fight. He pulled the two genin aside and sat them down. "I know that both of you think that what she did was wrong but what Naruto and Akira said is right. We are hired to protect no matter what the cost even if we get our hands dirty. This is your first time seeing one of your own kill but that is just what we do. Imagine how many people have already died at their hands. Imagine how many more could have died if she had not taken their life. "

The two genin were left with a lot to think about. Sakura with what exactly she got herself into when she decided that she wanted to be a shinobi. If she was going to be a proper shinobi she had so much more to do. She would need to taker her job way more seriously. She was now willing to make that change.

Sasuke reevaluated his ambition of killing his brother, he wanted to kill the man more than ever but now he took in to consideration what that really meant. That he would not only the man that killed their parents but he would also kill his older brother whom he had idolised and loved. He would now not only kill Itachi for himself but also for the people he had killed along the way, to protect others from his grasp.

"We have to move faster now, knowing that Zabuza we could be following us right now we have to take caution. Akira, are you ready to get going?" Kakashi questioned the girl who had gone silent and was sitting on the grass.

She took one gulp from her jug of water then stood up. "Hai Kakashi-sensei."

"You mind masking us until we get to their house?" Naruto questioned, knowing fully well that the girl had the ability to mask chakra signatures. ' But I'm not sure if she mask us all together at once'

"I will, but I will begin to lose chakra. If it comes to the point that my hair has no more white and my wrist tattoo is only a single triangle, please put chakra through there."

The team set off with a much faster pace, stopping only once to tend to the old bridge builder who gone silent since the interrogation. 'These kids give up their innocence to protect their village. I can't believe how much has been taken away from them for them to harden their hearts like that young girl has. It scares me but I'm thankful because of people like them Inari won't need to lose his innocence.'

"Sakura, I hope you know that I didn't kill them. I just injected a fast reacting poison that will keep them knocked out for a day and sick for a week until back up finds them. I am not that heartless," Akira said quietly as she breathed heavier than before.

Her pink-haired companion was immediately filled up with guilt as she heard this. She nodded and gave her fellow kunoichi an apologetic smile. Sasuke seemed to relax as he heard their exchange. Naruto just smiled, suspecting that she hadn't. There would be way more opportunities for them if she kept them alive, they could prove a source of intel. She was not that blood thirsty. Kakashi was impressed by her prowess.

_"Leave them alive and do not do anything too bloody," the jonin had whispered to her before giving her free reign. _

"But I have taken a life before. I couldn't sleep for awhile because I kept imagining the blood on my hands. I kept seeing the face of the man I killed. But then I remembered what he had done, the countless girls he had raped and killed just like he was going to do to me. I do not regret taking his life," the young Kojin said, reminiscing about her life outside the village we she hadn't never spoken about before.

"When the time comes, I won't regret it, " Sakura had stated with a new light in her eye. The girls smiled at one another, finally getting along with each other. That was the start of their budding friendship.

The rest of their journey continued on relatively silent but the tension between everyone had disappeared. They arrived at Tsunami's house winded but none more than the young Kojin who had halfway through needed to be carried by Kakashi due to the amount of effort and strain that was place upon her when she was masking all their chakra signatures.

Tsunami welcomed them and immediately set up a futon for the young kunoichi in the spare bedroom the female ninja would be sharing. Even though she was put down, she continued to mask their signatures, completely unaware of their location.

" We are safe, you can stop now," Kakashi had told her quietly. She finally let go and the most of the strain disappeared from her but she still had difficulty breathing.

"My medicine is in my left pocket inside the vest. Two pills. Before doing that tell Naruto to do as I told him," she had uttered before she passed out. Her hair had gone fully black and her tattoo had shrunken, meaning she was fully drained of her chakra.

The jonin nodded and immediately retrieved Sakura and Naruto and brought them into the room. He told them what she had said and Naruto immediately grabbed onto her wrist. He focused his chakra into his hand and pressed into her tattoo. He immediately felt his chakra being taken away as the colour was returning to her face. He hair began turning white again and her tattoo spiralled. He let go and breathed heavily.

Sakura told him to get a glass of water, and he returned a few moments later. Sakura had already taken out the pills out of the girl's vest. They had no way to make her swallow the pills without choking her so she crushed the pills and mixed it into the water. She lifted her head up and made the knocked genin drink the water.

"Naruto, Kakashi-sensei, could you please leave now? I'm going to change her," the Sakura stated. The blonde slightly turned red and they both left the room.


	12. Chapter 12

Team 7 accompanied Tazuna to the construction everyday. It was close to being finished, only a few weeks were needed to fully complete the bridge. But they noticed that each day less and less of the workers came to the construction site. They were afraid of losing their lives, afraid of what Gato would do to them and their family.

They began not only guarding but helping the old man with construction, Naruto provided him with 50 kagebunshin who would help him with the work that needed to be done. Kakashi was on high guard, waiting for Zabuza and his assistant to arrive at any moment. Sasuke and Naruto were left to stand guard as well, assigned to take on Zabuza's assistant the moment they made themselves known. They had already gone over multiple tactics regarding the problems of the Ice Kekkei Genkai. Sakura and Akira were left at home to watch over Inari and Tsunami. Akira occasionally switched with one of the boys.

It was dinner time and everybody had just come home. For the first time since the ninja arrived two days ago, Inari finally had made himself known. He sat down quietly next to his mother, his eyes red from crying. Tsunami had been asking the ninja about their progress and their mission when Inari spoke up.

"Why do you even try? You are just going to die anyways. Gato will kill you. You don't what he has done to this town, how much we have suffered. You don't even know what suffering is, so naive coming from that big happy village of yours, " the young boy exclaimed, his mother immediately shushed him and apologised for his disrespect and urged the boy to do the same.

For once Akira had managed to restrain herself from going after the boy since he was a kid after all but that did not mean she wasn't going to teach him as lesson, "You say we don't know suffering, you know nothing about us, about our past. You don't know how I did not have a childhood, and spent my days training and gathering information in the most vile ways. I had my first kill when I was 8, when a man tried to rape and kill me. You do not know the countless people I have killed to protect those I love. You don't know how I watched my mother die right in front of my own eyes because I was careless on a mission. You don't know me, you have no right."

Everyone looked at her with wide eyes. These were not the words you were expecting to hear from a girl of her age. She was so put together but she too had felt loss.

It was Naruto who spoke up next, "You don't know how may assassination attempts I have gone through. I had six by the time I turned 10. You don't know how I am hated by almost everyone in the village for something I have no control of. You don't know how hard it is for me to even buy food or clothing because nobody will accept a 'demon' into their shop. I was starved the whole time I lived in the orphanage, they even kicked me out at age 5. I was left to fend for myself, they even stole the little money that I had. I can't even leave the house without triple checking the locks because the one time I left it unlocked my house was ransacked and almost burned to a crisp. The civilian council will find any excuse to have me locked up behind bars and tortured for crimes I didn't even commit."

Nobody knew the blonde's life was like that in the village. They just though that they did not like him very much for all the pranks he had committed. Kakashi knew otherwise, the Yondaime wanted Naruto to be seen as a hero, but all the civilians saw was a monster. They were breaking the law set by the Sandaime regarding the jinchuuriki and the moment the known stepped back into the village he will report everything to the Hokage. This the only redemption he can have for ignoring the young blonde throughout the years, when he could have took care of him instead.

"You don't know how it feels to have your whole clan massacred. I just went to school one day and I came back everyone was dead. Everything smelled of blood, all I saw was blood and dead bodies of my relatives littering the streets. I ran to my own home to see my brother, the man who I loved and idolised, I watched as he took the life of our own parents. But the thing is, he left me alive. He left me to suffer alone even if I want nothing more than to die," Sasuke had said in one breath. He clenched his hand, his knuckles turning white.

The Uchiha was not one to talk about the little feelings he had left, but when he was told that he did not understand suffering he could not restrain himself. He had gone through far too much. Unlike Naruto, he knew his parents which made all the more harder when he was left alone because he was born knowing love and in a day it just disappeared.

Surprisingly Kakashi had spoken too. The genin did not know much about the jonin, so the listened to his words intently. " I came home to see my father dead, he committed suicide because he was being ostracised for giving up a mission to save his fellow shinobi. Later on, I watched as my teammate threw herself on my own hand to kill herself. I watched as my other teammate get stuck under a boulder because he was saving my life. He too died leaving me with his eye. I watched as my sensei, the man who had been like a father to me, also die protecting the village. I became numb and did nothing but kill and kill. Before I knew it there was already so much blood on my hands and there is no way I can wash it off now, "

"You can't say we don't know suffering. We all gave up our childhoods to become soldiers to do our village's bidding. We gave up our innocence to protect civilians like yourself from the burden. We have so much blood on our hands. We put our lives on the line to keep people safe. So you have no right to tell us to give up. We are ready to give our lives to protect your grandfather over here," Naruto had concluded their sudden monologues.

Sakura looked at the members of Team 7 with wide eyes. They all held so much pain, she wanted nothing more to take it away. Kakashi was more than just the perverted man she thought he was. He had gone through so much losses. Too much losses. He was just existing not anymore truly living. Akira, the girl who had threatened to kill her was a young girl who had grown up too quickly. She gave up her childhood,her innocence, her sanity for the sake of the village. A girl who wanted nothing more than to have a break.

At the beginning she saw Sasuke as nothing more that the cool Uchiha who was handsome and good at everything. Now, she saw a boy warped by hatred and vengeance, she saw a boy mourning for the loss of his family, she saw a boy who nothing more than to die.

The Haruno looked over at Naruto. His face always held happiness, now she realised that it was nothing more than a mask. Under the mask of idiocy was boy who was far too broken to be fixed. He wanted nothing more than friendship and love. The two things he had never had. She now saw a boy who was forced to grow up, forced to face death, forced to face hardship with nobody to lean on. His rebellious side was not a call for attention, but a call for help. He wanted someone to see what was under the mask, what was under the fake smile.

Inari knew nothing of the pains if being a shinobi. He left the table and ran to his room to cry once again, but now he not only cried for the loss of the Kaiza, the man who he viewed as his father, he also cried for the shinobi who had already lost so much. He cried for not realising that he was so lucky to have his grandfather and mother who loved him so.

Tazuna explained to the shinobi the incident that happen with Kaiza. The pain Inari felt from losing him. "It is nothing to what you have experienced but I apologise for his behaviour. I would also like to thank you for taking this mission even when I lied about what it was originally about." The old man bowed lowly at the ninja, every bit thankful. Tsunami joined him as well, thanking them for staying and protecting her father.

"You have no reason to thank us. We chose to do because we do not agree with the injustice that is happening "Kakashi replied making them raise their heads. "We will happily protect your village and family from Gato. "

Naruto and Sasuke helped Tsunami clean up after the dinner, while the two girls headed up to bed. Sakura helped her fellow kunoichi up the stairs since she was still feeling quite weak. Karachi had head out to check on the traps he had lay which surrounded the house. Tazuna knocked on his grandson's door only to be told to go away.

After cleaning up, Naruto made his way to Inari's door and knocked softly. "Go away Oji-san!" the young boy had called out weakly.

"Inari, it's Naruto. Open the door for me please," the older boy urged gently.

The door the creaked open slowly to reveal Inari with puffy eyes. His tears still fresh on his cheeks. The boy ended up back on his bed curled up underneath his blanket.

"I'm sorry that had to happen to you. I don't know what it feels like to lose someone since I never had anyone. But now I have so much people that I never want to lose, my precious people. If I lost any one of them, I don't know if I could feel again. They are why I work so hard to become strong, so I can protect them. So you have to grow up and get strong so you can protect your mom and your oji-san. You are a strong kid, I know you can do it," the blonde boy encouraged as he gently ran his fingers through the little boy's hair.

The action calmed Inari down, it made him listen to the Uzumaki's words intently. For the first time in months Inari smiled, "Hai."

* * *

The boys of Team 7, together with Tazuna left the house at 7 that morning to begin the day's work. It had already been a week since they had gotten to the Land of the Waves and they would be due back in Konoha a week from now, seeing as the construction was nearly finished.

Sakura and Akira on the other hand stayed and helped Tsunami at home. They were in the middle of washing the dishes when Akira dropped the plate she was rinsing.

"Sakura, bring Tsunami-san and Inari upstairs. Make sure to lock them in the attic. We have some company arriving in 10 minutes, " the sensor ordered feeling the two small reserves of chakra enter her field. From what she could tell they were just bandits, probably under Gato coming to get Tsunami and Inari as hostages. They were a threat nonetheless.

The Haruno nodded her head and took Tsunami upstairs, she opened the door to Imari's room and grabbed him as well. She opened the door to their attic through the hatch in the ceiling and immediately ushered them in.

"Tsunami-san, do not open this door unless you hear me or Akira say it's okay. Do not make any loud noises. Please take this for protection," Sakura instructed handing the woman a kunai from her holster. "Inari, be a good boy and protect your mommy over here, okay?"

Before the young boy could answer, the Haruno had jumped down the hatch and locked it. She rushed down the ground floor to join her fellow kunoichi, who had already barricaded the windows.

"Sakura, stay in here. I will deal with this alone," her teammate instructed as she took out her handle out of her pouch and drew out her scythe.

"I will not leave you to handle this alone. I'm coming with you wether you like it or not," Sakura replied. She would not let herself be protected again.

"Sakura, please. Let me handle this. I don't want you to see what I am about to do," Akira pleaded as she felt the bandits get even closer to the house.

"If you do not walk through the door in ten minutes, I'm coming out to get you."

Akira gave her a brief smile before her whole face went emotionless as she headed out the door.

She stepped outside and manoeuvred her way through the multiple traps that Kakashi had set. She climbed up a tree and waited for the bandits.

"The old bridge-builder's house is up ahead. I heard that he has a daughter," the taller of the two mentioned to his fellow bandit.

"We are definitely having fun with her," replied his companion as he licked his lips at the thought which elicited a laugh out of the two.

Akira was furious.

In a quick movement she jumped down from the tree she was previously on and landed silently behind them. They were still oblivious to her arrival. She attacked in quick move swiping at the shorter bandit's legs, effectively slashing through his pants and leaving deep cuts on the back of his calfs. The man screamed and fell forward at the sudden pain. His legs were unable to move.

The taller bandit turned and brought out his sword. He swung directly at her, aiming for her shoulder but was blocked by the staff of her scythe. As they fought to over power one another, Akira aimed a kick to his head which caught him off guard. Using that moment of shock to her advantage she aimed a slash straight across his chest but he was not done yet. He swung straight at her neck, she dodged and she shunshined a few meters behind him.

He blinked in confusion as the girl disappeared, but in the next moment he felt a blade slice through his skin and his torso separated from his bottom. He died instantly.

His companion was still on the ground alive and breathing, but in too much pain to move. She propped him up against a tree.

"What are Gato's plans?" Akira demanded.

The man was completely at her mercy. Not wanting to end up like his companion he quickly stammered an answer, "H-he sent Zabuza and his assistant to kill the bridge builder, as soon as he completes the mission he will kill them along with the other ninja. We were instructed to get his daughter and the son as hostages so that villagers would listen to our commands."

"Please don't kill me. I will do anything," the bandit pleaded at the ninja. She looked him straight in the eye, she felt no pity. Bandits cannot be trusted they would betray you the moment you set them free unlike rogue ninja who would have loyalty.

She struck him in the arm, cutting of his right arm and let him bleed to death. She took their bodies and threw them in the river.


	13. Chapter 13

The moment Akira entered the house, she noted that Sakura was in the process of getting ready to leave. The pink haired girl looked at her teammate with concern as she noted the blood that covered her teammate's otherwise white leg bandages.

"Don't worry it's not my blood," she dismissed, "Go get Tsunami and Inari. I'll just take care go these, as she gestured to her legs.

Sakura nodded and as she made her way up the stairs, she noted Akira's unnatural calmness and oddly enough business-like attitude which was a stark difference from her otherwise silent yet somehow hot headed nature. A few minutes later she came down followed by Tsunamia and crying Inari.

"We will be leaving you to assist our teammates at the bridge. You two will stay here, they will not come back to check if you are here. The mercenaries hired by Gato have already been disposed of. Do not open the door for anyone until we come back ourselves. Clear, Tsunami-san?" instructed Akira with authority in her voice as she sat on the couch wiping up the blood on her legs. The occupants looked at this action and noticed the long scars that littered her lower half. The girl in question paid no mind and continued this action as she threw away her bandages in the nearest garbage bin. Akira did not bother to re-wrap her legs in the bandages since it would take some time which they currently had none of.

Tsunami nodded vigorously, Akira noticed the woman's quivering lips. She gave her a smile to ease her nerves, "Don't worry Tsunami-san. We will bring back your father safe and in one piece."

"I worry for you and your team too. Please come back safely," the woman quietly whispered as she held on to the hands of the female kunoichi. With a nod from them, Tsunami let go. It was like losing Kaiza once again, but this time she knew that these people had a chance.

"Stay strong, okay? I don't think you want a lecture from Naruto, do you?" Sakura joked as she bent down to get on the same level as the crying young boy. He hands immediately shot up to wipe his eyes.

The two kunoichi then made their way to the bridge.

* * *

Over at the bridge construction had been halted. Kakashi's years in the ANBU had not failed him, he had an odd feeling that they were being watched and it put him on edge. He instructed the genin with him to guard Tazuna.

Our young blonde quickly dispelled his multiple shadow clones and created one putting in a fourth of his chakra in it. He was on edge as well, after many assassinations attempts he grew somewhat paranoid. So his already enhanced senses were on high alert. He and Sasuke had gone in a formation with Naruto and his clone behind the bridge builder and Sasuke in front. They both drew their kunai, ready to block anything that came their way.

The fog began to creep in, slowly obscuring their sight. Naruto remembered the information that Kakashi and Akira had shared regarding Zabuza. The latter, who seemingly memorised the entire contents of the bingo book. The missing-nin was known for silent killing, he could move so silently and before you knew it you would be dead by his blade. The fog was starting to thicken, it occurred to the blond that this was not at all natural. In quick movements, he began to do hand signs and then he muttered the name of the justu.

**"Fūton: Kiryū Ranbu," **suddenly air currents came out from the young blonde's palms. He held the justu long enough for the fog to dissipate. It revealed two figures, a tall man and a shorter boy, Zabuza and his assistant. Zabuza went straight for the bridge builder with his sword in his grasp. Kakashi intercepted and led Zabuza away from the genin.

His companion on the other hand had disappeared from sight. Suddenly senbon were threw in the direction of Tazuna. Sasuke blocked all he could and the few ones that went through were blocked by Naruto. Then out of nowhere their assailant approached with a kunai.

"It's odd we got here without you noticing. The last time, we completely missed you. I'm guessing your sensor isn't here today, " the boy commented as Sasuke parried his blow, only to follow it with a roundhouse kick to the head.

"It's none of your business. Speaking of which, we don't know your name and I try to make it a habit to know who it is I am dealing with," Naruto declared as he left his position to assist Sasuke.

"My name is Haku. I would say it's nice to meet you but now isn't exactly the best time," the newly introduced boy said as he blocked Naruto's blow to the boy's back.

"I'm Naruto and the other guy is Sasuke. I would say exactly the same Haku-san," the blonde said casually as he aimed a strike to the nin's neck which got through, effectively disorienting the boy. The members of Team 7 took advantage of this and they executed the plan they previously discussed.

Sasuke used this moment to kick Haku up into the air. Everything passed as if in slow motion, Naruto aimed a kick to his right side. Sasuke followed it with a slash of the kunai to his gut and kicked him further upwards. Naruto appeared from above and gave him an axe kick straight at the gut, effectively sending Haku to the ground.

But they were not yet done, Sasuke hurriedly did his hand signs for his justu and exclaimed, **"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu," ** a big ball of fire came out of the boy's mouth.

At the same time Naruto did his signs for his justu. "**Fūton: Kiryū Ranbu," ** the same currents of air came out of his palms which he directed at Sasuke's fireball which further enhance his flames and made the ball of fire even bigger. The fireball collided with Haku's body. The smoke cleared, they expected to see Haku's dead body but all they saw was a tiny puddle of water, the rest had evaporated in the fire.

'_Water clone,should have expected that. It was too easy,' _ the blonde thought to himself as he surveyed the surrounding area. He looked over to Tazuna to see that his clone was still intact and the old man was safe but clearly trying to keep himself from panicking. He looked over at the water to see Haku's reflection, he was standing under the bridge.

They briefly made eye contact and Haku sudden ran towards Sasuke with Naruto hot on his tail. As the mercenary was running he was making one handed signs for his impending jutsu. **"Hijutsu: Makyō Hyōshō,"** ice formed around the genie, trapping them in dome full of ice mirrors. He had put in enough chakra to include the blonde in the dome.

Haku made the dome shrink, closing the vast distance in between the two genin putting them straight at the center. He then stepped into one of the mirrors and suddenly all of them reflected the ninja.

"I have one question before I kill you all," the dark haired mercenary stated, "Why do you fight?" The question in itself was easy to answer but it held much meaning for both of the Konoha genin.

"I fight to get stronger so that I can kill the man that massacred my clan," Sasuke said as he looked around the mirrors trying to find the real Haku.

"Revenge will only lead you to insanity and you will end up in the same path as that man," Sasuke frowned at the insight given to him by the hunter-nin. But the words stuck with him, leaving him with something to think about later on.

"I fight to protect the people I love, my precious people. I fight to protect civilians and the village, no matter how much they may hate me," Naruto stated truthfully as he formulated a plan to break the mirrors. He did not know what the justu does but he was thinking of multiple ways to get out of the dome.

"Love is a weak emotion. It will hold you back."

"Then why do you fight Haku-san?" the blonde jinchuuriki asked, generally curious but also trying to buy more time to think of a plan.

"I fight because I am Zabuza's tool, and if this is what he wants me to do then I will do it because I owe him my life. That is my purpose of living," Haku stated. "Enough talking, I will kill the both of you now."

Haku's reflection in the mirrors started moving as if to throw the senbon currently in his hands. They boys looked around for the real one but to their dismay Haku already threw. Senbon rained down on them and they did their best to block everything that came their way. The cycle repeated itself and they were rained on by senbon.

Both genin had defected majority of the senbon but more than a few had hit their mark. Leaving them stuck in their bodies, almost like pincushions. Just when they thought that the assault would end, Haku made one handed signs once more.

"**Hijutsu: Sensatsu Suishō," **long needles were formed from the water surrounding them from all sides and hurtled towards them. They continued blocking since it was all hey could do at the moment. This justu was not thought of in their plan. Both the genins were thinking of plausible ways to get out.

That was when Sasuke stumbled, sending him to the ground. Their foe took advantage of this split second and aimed more senbon in the Uchiha's direction. Naruto quickly took wind of this and shielded his teammate from the needles.

"Why?" the dark haired genin asked as he observed the senbon littered body of Naruto that was some how still standing.

"You wouldn't be able to survive that blow," the blonde replied promptly. Using his chakra in his body, he pushed the needles out of his skin. His body healing, right before their eyes. After a few seconds there was no longer any evidence that he was embedded by them in the first place. It was a shock to everyone except the blonde. "But I can. I will not let you die in here and besides don't you still have to kill your brother?"

The boys smirked at each other, their morale renewed.

Haku began dishing out blow after blow. Naruto decided it was high time that he test out his theory. As they were deflecting senbon, he shared his plan with Sasuke who had no choice but to agree because he had no ideas himself and this plan was better than nothing.

"**Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu**," the ball of fire once again came out of the Uhciha's mouth which he directed to the ceiling of the dome of mirrors. Due to this Haku remained in the mirrors, fully knowing that they would not melt under the assault. Then suddenly he felt one of his mirrors start to crack.

He looked over to see Naruto holding a kunai that was coated in wind chakra. The Uzumaki smiled at the result of his experiment. He knows that to pull of a justu of this scale, it must require a load of chakra and even more to retain. But to do that there would need to be steady and fixed flow of chakra that went into the mirrors. In this case half directed to water and the other to wind to let the ice mirrors form. So to test out his theory, using his chakra kunai, he disrupted one of the mirrors with more wind chakra which messed up the ratio causing the mirror to implode.

Sasuke did as Naruto instructed to him previously and ran out of the opening to the direction of Tazuna who was not too far off. In less the dome of mirrors had fallen down. Naruto was in the centre of it, completely unharmed while Haku lay on the floor. The blonde immediately put a kana against the boy's neck.


	14. Chapter 14

Kakashi was holding his own against Zabuza. His opponent was nothing short of skilled, with his sword. The man's affinity with water was impressive but it was not effective against Kakashi who put his Sharingan to good use. The were matched somewhat evenly seeing as both of them were former ANBU. To an outsider their fighting would seem like a blur, but to the trained eye you could see the complexity and how lethal each blow was.

Both ninja had their fair share of injuries from the justus that had hit their mark. It was the loud crash of mirrors that caught their attention in the middle of their battle. They looked over to where the sound had originated only to see Haku's fallen dome.

"Looks like your apprentice was not as good as you thought," Karachi taunted as he took advantage of the distraction. He aimed a kick to the lower leg, successfully making his knees buckle. The same moment, Kakashi's ninken which he summoned previously had track down the ninja from the scent of his blood and held him down. The Hatake then performed the justu that he was renowned for back in Konoha. The same justu that killed Rin.

"**Raikiri,**" his hand was enveloped with concentrated lightning. He thrust his hand forward to finally end Zabuza, when a blur came between them. Haku had thrown himself infront of Zabuza as a shield. The boy grabs at the Hatake so that he can't move away. Zabuza used this moment to set himself free from the ninken.

"Haku was a good weapon till the end, but his body is in the way right now," Zabuza stated as he slices forward not caring if he cuts through the dead body of the boy he had raised as his own.

Kakashi pulls away, taking Haku's dead body with him. He gently sets the boy down and closes his eyes, trying to bring the boy to peace. Kakashi had gone silent, not responding to the Momochi's taunts anymore. He was angry.

The jonin rushed forward in a blur. He swiped a blow down to Zabuza's legs, which was dodged. With a kunai in each hand, imbued with his lightning chakra, he attacks the ninja. He blocks the slash to his mid section with his kunai, cutting through the blade. Zabuza was not fazed by this and merely dipped what was left of his blade in one the small puddles of blood that had already formed. The iron from the blood was absorbed and the blade reformed itself.

They continued on with their battle. It took awhile but Zabuza had finally collapsed on the ground, he could no longer feel his arms due to the damage inflicted by Kakashi's kunai.

"Things are going exactly as planned but a little slower than I hoped for. At least your little bitch of an apprentice is already dead. All that's left is to kill of you and these Konoha ninja and I will be in complete control of the Land of the Waves," interrupted Gato as he made himself known along with his men. The ninjas were vastly out numbered with the mercenaries being over a hundred.

"Zabuza, will you let him say that about your apprentice? Didn't you raise him as your own? Haku-san gave his life for you and you were the only reason why he lived. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" the Uzumaki questioned as they moved closer to the older shinobi.

"Haku was what kept me from going insane. A good kid until the end and I never got to tell that him," Zabuza confessed as he said his true feelings. He saw himself in the boy, forced to grow up because of the cruelty of the times in Kiri. At the same time, Akira and Sakura had arrived at the scene just in time. Sakura went over to Tazuna while Akira went to where Naruto and the jonin were.

"Looks like we came right in time," Akira said observing the scene before them.

"More of you? Doesn't matter. It's nothing my men can't handle. Let's make this fun shall we," Gato said as he moved towards Haku's dead body. "When I say 'Go' the first one to give me Tazuna's head will receive a bonus and they will get to play with this one right here as well as all the females in the town starting with the kunoichi right there."

This angered all the shinobi present but none more than Zabuza Momochi, "Kakashi, lend me a kunai."

The jonin complied and handed it to him. Zabuza loosened the bandages around his mouth and put the kunai between his teeth. He was ready to show them why he was called The Demon of the Mist.

" Three,"

Sakura and Sasuke took their guarding position, each drawing two kunai in each hand. Sasuke's eyes turned red as he awakened his Sharingan for the first time. The world was clearer through his new eyes and whatever fear he felt before was gone in an instant.

"Two,"

Akira walked over two both the jonin and gave them a portion of her stored chakra before drawing her scythe. The older men felt relieved as their chakra was increased. They were ready for a battle, having known what war was like they were not worried at all. Zabuza was ready to die, but not without taking them with him. Kakashi split his chakra into three clones and readied himself for the assault of the mercenaries.

"One,"

Naruto made fifty clones and littered them across the unfinished bridge with a kunai in each hand. The mercenaries gulped at the action but the reward would be way more satisfying. In their heads, the kids stood no chance so this would be an easy win. Or so they thought.

"Go."

That one word resonated before it was quickly drowned out by screams and the sounds of metal against metal. Zabuza was quick in apprehending the mercenaries before him even though his arms were useless. He used his legs and many died due to the kunai in his mouth. Even though there were already swords and such stuck in his back he kept pushing forward leaving blood and dead bodies in his wake.

Kakashi was all seriousness with his single Sharingan eye together with his Raikiri in his hand and a kunai was as deadly as the Demon of the Mist. Bodies lay in his wake as he used the various ninjutsu that he copied in the field. His victims were smashed by walls of mud, burned, hit with fast torrents of water, electrocuted or with his Rakiri in their chests. All gruesome deaths but they did not have time to be merciful and these men did not deserve any mercy.

Naruto was letting all the fruits of his training show. Each his movements were full of purpose and grace as he struck down each of the mercenaries before him. His foes were cut by sharp winds that came with him. His clones were barely diminishing and the pile of his casualties increased and increased. He fought with vigour because he wanted to protect these people from the oppression of Gato and his men. They would suffer like no other and he knew very much about what it was like. The people of the wave did not deserve it but the men before him sure did.

Akira was mind was blank as she cut down mercenary after mercenary. Their deaths were necessary and she was glad to see them happen because of their various evil deeds but she remained silent. She was not letting her emotions cloud her judgement but that did not mean she did not feel a sense of satisfaction as they fell before her. Her scythe became an arc of destruction, never striking more than twice. She did not take the time to take in the blood shed that she had caused, she only looked for her next target. Her purity had been taken away years ago when she decided she wanted to be a ninja. This was her reality.

Sasuke was guarding Tazuna together with Sakura and they were taking down the rare mercenary that passed the others. They were consumed by Sasuke's fireballs or rained on by his shuriken and kunai. He knew exactly were the would strike thanks to his Sharingan so they were intercepted and either killed or thrown off the bridge into the sea. They were murders just like his brother and for that he showed them no pity.

Sakura was not as involved with the blood shed as her other teammates were but that did not mean that there was no blood on her hands. She remembered what Gato had said if someone had managed to get Tazuna and Zabuza's head. She remembered the little the boy that had accidentally bumped into her in town. The innocence in the boy's eyes. She would not let that happen to these people. Her shuriken hit the unsuspecting victims right in the neck where she remembered was a vital point in the body from her days in the Academy.

Ten minutes was all it took to disable all Gato's men. Most of them were dead, while the rest were trying to play dead in hopes that none of the shinobi would notice. They no longer cared that their employer would die at the ninjas' hands, they only hoped that they wouldn't die with him.

Gato was now cowering before the ninja as he begged for his life. He offered them all his riches, if only they would not take his life. The shinobi looked at each other as if considering the proposal, before they smirked at one another, silently agreeing with their decision.

"See you in hell," Zabuza said as he picked up his sword with the last of his strength and beheaded the man. Zabuza promptly collapsed afterward. He had already lost too much blood, and there were too many weapons that were struck in his own body.

"Please take me to him," he whispered through his heavy breathing. Kakashi complied and picked him up to take him next to where his apprentice lay to rest. As he was set down, Kakashi removed all the weapons that were stuck in him. The genin were silent as they watched the scene before them. Snow began to fall, as if the sky was crying.

Through his laboured breathing Zabuza managed to utter, "You always loved the snow didn't you? I remember that we met on a snow day. You changed my life and kept me sane. Thank you so much Haku. I only hope that I end up, up there right next to you."

His eyes fluttered shut and he stopped heaving. The life had left his body. The Konoha ninja and Tazuna gave their respects to the fallen man. In different circumstances, he would have made a great comrade and friend. They picked up their bodies and lay them to rest on a hill that overlooked the land of the waves. They used Zabuza's sword as his tombstone and Haku's mask as his own.


	15. Chapter 15

With Gato and his men gone, it took only a week to finish construction. The Land of the Waves was slowly becoming full of life as it used to be. It helps that local government were donated the large amount of money that was in Gato's possession, thanks to the Konoha-nin who went to find his hideout in the area. They received more and more foreign traders who wanted to business in the land. Things were finally as they should be.

"Do you really have to go?" Inari questioned as he gripped at Naruto's leg. The kid had grown attach to all of them, but none more than Naruto.

"I'm afraid so. I'll come back and visit as soon as I can," the blonde boy assured.

"Promise Nii-san?"

"Promise," he replied as he gave the small boy a big hug.

"Thank you again for everything. You are always welcome in the Land of the Waves," Tazuna said as he bowed his at the ninja.

"It was no problem, Tazuna-san. We will take our leave now," Kakashi said as he and his team set off dashing into the forrest across the newly built bridge.

"What are you going to name the bridge?" Tsunami questioned her father.

With a small grim smile he replied, "The Bridge of the Red Wave."

* * *

Team 7 arrived at Konoha just as the sun was setting. The Uchiha went straight to his home, fully intending on looking up family scrolls about his newly activated Sharingan. Sakura went straight home to greet her parents who were delighted that their daughter had finally returned from her mission. Akira accompanied Kakashi to deliver the mission report, seeing as she had lost their round of rock-paper-scissors. Naruto on the other hand had gone straight to the Hokage Monument.

"I'm back Dad. It was a long mission and I have learned so much. I even made some new friends…" he rambled on to his father, who was no doubt looking down on him listening in. He had finished when he had seen Hinata walking her way up to where he was seated. He immediately stood up and rushed to meet her half way.

Hinata was glad to see that Naruto had returned in one piece as he enveloped her in a big hug. As they pulled away from each other, Naruto lightly kissed her forehead. They just smiled at one another, not saying a word.

They then found themselves high up in a tree, with Hinata leaning against Naruto's chest with his arms wrapped around her.

"So how have your missions been?" the blonde questioned as they watch the setting sun.

"Uneventful, but my trainning has been going better," the Hyuuga girl replied, "I'm more interested in how your mission went."

He laughed and began to tell her all about what had happened in the Land of the Waves. She was shocked about the occurrences but was glad that he came home in one piece. She then talked about one of her missions with her team. The smiles on their faces never left even as they parted ways. He left her with a quick kiss on her lips before he headed off. Leaving Hinata blushing as she entered her home.

Naruto went to his training ground after that. He felt as if he had slacked off in his training while he was in the Land of the Waves. So he settled into his training routine. He even came up with more ways to make it more challenging for himself. His creativity knew no bounds.

* * *

In the Hokage Tower, Kakashi and Akira had just finished giving in the mission report for the supposed C-rank mission which had turned into an A-rank.

"Before I forget, Kakashi-kun. The Chunin Exams are coming up and I was wondering if you are interested?" the Homage mentioned as he handed the report to one of his Chunin assistants who rushed out to file it.

"I believe from their behaviour during the mission, they have proved themselves ready. I will be nominating them in our meeting, Hokage-sama."

" I thought so," with a gesture of his hand the Hokage had instructed his ANBU to secure the room. After they had done so he continued, "Akira-kun, you will need to be present during the Exams. This is crucial, we do not want any harm coming to Naruto, Sasuke or any of the clan children. After the Second Round, you will no longer be needed to go undercover in Team 7. You will be assigned to your ANBU team afterwards and will go on the designated missions. Understood?"

She was the only ANBU operative who was the same age as the genin. Her and her brother were welcomed into the ANBU after they had gone through the mandated test, which they had passed with flying colors. So when the Hokage had offered her the mission, she agreed to take it on. After all it was what her mother would have wanted for her and her brother.

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

Kakashi was only informed of her assignment after Team 7 had their first team meeting. He was not really surprised to see such a young operative. He after all was only a few years older than her when he was welcomed into the ANBU and Uchiha Itachi had been her age when he joined. Her acting was very convincing and he almost believed her taijutsu-hating-grumbling act whenever they had training.

They had left going their separate ways, the Hatake heading to visit the Memorial Stone to tell Obito all about the mission. Kojin Akira made her way to the hill in hopes of finding some time to think.

She arrived at the hill to see Shikamaru leaned against the tree, taking anap. She smiled at the sight, over the past few months she had grown used to his presence. They had their conversations about nothing and everything which went on and on or when they just lay in silence watching the clouds. She sat beside him and watched as the colour drained out of the sky.

"It's good to have you back," he said softly, opening his eyes to look at her.

"Missed me?" she teased back.

"It would be a troublesome if I lied and said I didn't," he said truthfully as he closed his eyes once more. She just smiled at him as she gently lay her head on his shoulder before closing her eyes as well. Akira couldn't see but Shikamaru opened his eyes and looked at her with big smile before bringing his arm around her shoulder.

* * *

Team 7 met up bright and early the next day, their team training began at 7 that morning and Kakashi was on time because Sakura had threatened that she would burn his book collection if he did not arrive on time. Sasuke even played into it by taking out a copy of Icha Icha Paradise which they got from Kami knows where and burned with a fire jutsu. He has not been late since.

A month had passed since their extended had been a great change in the team since they have come back from the Land of the Wave. Sakura had begun to take her role as a kunoichi seriously and even asked Kakashi for some help. In which he did by introducing her to Anko and Kurenai who were more than happy to help the young girl in their free time. Sasuke's loner-emo act had fallen and he was even seen smiling once in awhile. He even had asked Kakashi for help regarding the Sharingan which resulted in their one-on-one sessions to control the Kekkei Genkai. Akira and Naruto on the other hand had remained the same but they actually spent time with their other teammates now.

Their trainning on the other hand had gotten much harder, their weights were increased and the exercises were much tougher. That particular morning, the Hatake had them fighting each other over water. Sakura was paired with Akira and Sasuke with Naruto. The only rule was that they stuck to taijutsu only, the first one to be knocked down would lose. He rotated their parings as the day passed. After they had already fought with one another, he gave them a fifteen minute break.

They were then asked to do target practice. During their break the join had managed to set up targets across the field, how? They did not bother to ask. They were allowed to look at the targets for ten seconds before they were blind folded. They had to hit all twenty targets before the timer went off, which by the way was only set for a minute.

It was all very tiring.

Their training wrapped up in the afternoon leaving them to their own devices. So they decided to eat some Ramen, as they were heading to the stall they had bumped into Konohamaru. The little boy had grown attached to Naruto since they met in the Hokage Tower years ago. Just as he was begging Naruto to train him, he accidentally bumped into someone.

The young Sarutobi, was held at the neck and lifted into the air by the older ninja with face paint but at the same moment three kunai were pressed against the foreign ninja's body. One at the back of the neck which was held by Akira, one at the arm holding up Konohamaru which was held by Sasuke and one directly over his heart which was held by Naruto. The boy that he lifted was no longer there, a log in his place. Konohamaru was now quivering in the arms of Sakura.

"What do you think your doing to my brother?" a voice interrupted as girl with blonde hair appeared. She had a murderous look in her eye and a Suna headband tied around her neck.

"Your brother over here attacked the Hokage's grandson. So this is purely self defence on our behalf," Naruto replied as the rest of Team 7 held their positions.

"Kankuro, how stupid can you get?! Do you want to get us in trouble? Hell, do you want Gaara mad?" the girl lectured at the boy. Team 7 let go of Kankuro and watched as his sister bashed him on the head.

"I apologise on behalf of idiot of a brother," the blond girl said as she bowed her hand and forced her brother to do the same. She was one to apologise but noticing how seasoned the ninja before her seemed to be she did, not wanting to be on their bad side. The stance of Team 7 had relaxed as they accepted the apology. Konohamaru on the other hand was now hiding behind Naruto, clutching the blonde's shirt.

"Can you please tell your teammate up in the trees to stop giving us the death glare? It's very uncomfortable," Naruto politely said with a fake grin on his face.

"Interesting. Mother's telling me that she wants your blood," the red headed boy said as he traveled down from the branch on his sand. "Not just the blonde but all of you."

The Sunagakure siblings tensed up at the arrival of their red headed teammate, "What are your names?" the red head questioned.

"Uchiha Sasuke," the Uchiha introduced as he stared the boy straight in the eye.

"Haruno Sakura," the pink haired introduced as she shook slightly but nevertheless stood her ground and maintained eye contact with the foreign ninja.

"Kojin Akira," Akira introduced as maintained her poker face while she observed the Suna ninja. She would need to take note of them for later. A potential threat.

"Uzumaki Naruto. Gaara-san? I presume?" The blonde concluded. Naruto was wary of these people especially Gaara. The boy felt familiar to him in some way and the look in his eyes were that of a madman. Not to mention the boy's fixation on wanting their blood? It was odd, it raised his alarms but now not the time for a fight the knew that.

"Mother will be satisfied when she gets a taste of all your blood," with that Gaara walked away, leaving his siblings to hurry after him.


End file.
